


1 











" For near her stood the little boy 
Her childish favor singled." — Page 252. 



THE COMPLETE 



POETICAL WOKKS 



OP 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 



WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS. 



a 




BOSTON: 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. 

©be Htbcrstfic Prcsc, GDamlicttJjp* 
1884. 



TS 32. .50 

.Eh- 



Copyright, 1848, 1850, 1852, 1856, 1857, I860, 1863, 1865, 1867, 1868, 1870, 1872, 1874, IS? . 1873 

AND 1881, 1:1 

TICKNOK & FIELDS, FIELDS, OSGOOD & CO., 
JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., and JOHN G. WHITTIER. 

All rights reserved. 

GIFT 

MiSS LETITIA THOMAS 
AUG- 3 1940 



NOTE BY THE AUTHOR 

TO TIIE EDITION OF 1S5T. 

In these volumes, for the tirst time, a complete collection of my poetical writings has been 
made. While it is satisfactory to know th t these scattered children of my brain have found a 
home, I cannot but regret that I have besn unable, by reason of illness, to give that attention 
to their revision and arrangement, which respect for the opinions of others and my own after- 
thought and experience demand. 

That there are pieces in this collection which I would "willingly let die," I am free to con- 
fess. But it is now too late to disown them, and I must submit to the inevitable penalty of 
poetical as well as other sins. There are others, intimately connected witii the author's life and 
times, which owe their tenacity of vitality to the circumstances under which they were written, 
and the events by which they were suggested. 

The long poem of Mogg Megone was in a great measure composed in early life ; and it is 
scarcely necessary to say that its subject is not such as the writer would have chosen at any 
subsequent period. 

J. G. W. 

Amesburt, lSth 3d mo., 1857. 



PROEM 



I LOVE the old melodious lays 
Which softly melt the ages through, 

The songs nl Spenser's golden days, 

Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase, 
Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew, 

Yet, vainly in my quiet hours 
To breathe their marvellous notes I try; 

I feel them, as the leaves and flowers 

In silence feel the dewy showers. 
And drink with glad still lips the blessing of the sky. 

The rigor of a frozen clime, 
The harshness of an untaught ear, 

The jarring words of one whose rhyme 

Beat often Labor's hurried time, 
Or Dut\ 's rugged march through storm and strife, are here. 

Of mystic beauty, dreamy grace, 
No rounded art the lack supplies ; 

Unskilled the subtle lines to trace, 

Or softer shades of Nature's face, 
I view her common forms with unanointed eyes. • 

Nor mine the seer-like power to show 
The secrets of the heart and mind ; 

To drop the plummet-line below 

Our common world of joy and woe, 
A more intense despair or brighter hope to find. 

Yet here at least an earnest sense 
Of human right and weal is shown ; 

A hate of tyranny intense, 

And hearty in its vehemence, 
As if my brother's pain and sorrow were my own. 

O Freedom ! if to me belong 
Nor mighty Milton's gift divine, 

Nor Marvell's wit ami graceful song, 

Still with a love as deep and strong 
As theirs, 1 lay, like them, my best gifts on thy shrine ! 



Amesbukt, Wth i7io., 1847. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Mogg Megone. 

Parti 11 

Part II 15 

Part III IS 

The Bridal of Pennacook. 

i. The Merrimack 22 

II. The Bashaba 22 

in. The Daughter 23 

IV. The Wedding 24 

v. The New Home 24 

vi. At Pennacook 25 

vn. The Departure 26 

viii. Song of Indian Women 26 

Legendary. 

The Merrimack 26 

The Norsemen 27 

Cassandra S mthwick 28 

Funeral ["ree of the Sokokis 31 

St. John 31 

Pentucket 82 

The Familisfs Hymn ". :!:! 

The Fountain M4 

The Exiles 35 

The New Wife and the Old 36 

Voices of Freedom. 

Toussaint L'Ouverture 38 

The Slave-Ships 39 

■ Stanzas. Our Fellow-Countrymen in 

Chains 40 

The Yankee Girl 42 

ToW. L. G 42 

Song of the Free 42 

The Hunters of Men 4:J 

Clerical Oppressors 43 

The Christian Slave 44 

Stanzas for the Times 44 

Lines, written on Reading the Message 
of Governor Ritner, of Pennsylvania, 

1836 45 

The Pastoral Letti r 46 

Lines, written for the Meeting of the 
Anti-Slavery Society, at Chatham 

St. Chapel, K Y., L834 47 

Lines, written for the Celebration of 
the Third Anniversary of British 

Emancipation, 1 837 47 

Lines, written for the Anniversary of 

the First of August, at Milton, 1846 47 
The Farewell of a Virginia Slave Mo- 
ther to her Daughters sold into 

Southern Bondage 48 

The Moral Warfare 49 

The World's Convention 49 

New Hampshire 51 



PAGB 

The New Year : addressed to the Pat- 
rons of the Pennsylvania Freeman. . 51 

Massachusetts to Virginia 52 

The Relic 54 

The Branded Hand 54 

Texas 55 

To Faneuil Hall 56 

To Massachusetts 56 

The Pine-Tree 57 

Lines, suggested 1>\ a Visit to the City 
of Washington in the 12th month of 

1845 57 

Lines, from a Letter to a young Cleri- 
cal Friend 58 

Yorktown 59 

Lines, written in the Book of a Friend 59 

Paean 60 

To the Memory of Thomas Shipley. . . 61 

To a Southern Statesman 61 

Lines, on the Adoption of Pinckney's 

Resolutions 62 

The Curse of the Charter-Breakers. . . 62 

The Slaves of Martinique 63 

The Crisis 64 

Miscellaneous. 

The Knight of St. John 65 

The Holy Land 66 

Palestine 66 

Ezekiel 67 

The Wife of Manoah to her Husband.. 68 

The Cities of the Plain 69 

The Crucifixion 69 

The Star of Bethlehem 69 

Hymn s 70 

The Female Martyr . . . : 71 

The Frost Spirit 72 

The Vaudois Teacher 73 

The Call of the Christian 73 

My Soul and 1 73 

To a Friend, on her Return from 

Europe 75 

The Angel of Patience 76 

Follen 76 

To the Reformers of England 77 

The Quaker of the Olden Time 77 

The Reformer 7S 

The Prisoner for Debt 78 

Lines, written on Reading Pamphlets 
published by Clergymen against the 

Abolition of the Gallows 79 

The Human Sacrifice SO 

Randolph of Roanoke 81 

Democracy 82 

To Ronge 83 

Chalkley Hall 83 

To J. P 84 

The Cypress Tree of Ceylon 84 

A Dream of Summer 84 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

To fc 85 

; b'B Monumenl * 

Bongs of Labor, ind other Poems. 

Dedication ^ n 

Suildera 87 

The Shoemakei • 88 

The Drovers 89 

The Fishermen 89 

The II 90 

The < torn Song 01 

Lumbermen _ 02 

Miscellaneous. 

The Angels of Buena Vista 03 

s 94 

95 

What ill ■ Voice said 96 

To Delaware 96 

Worship 96 

The Demon of the Stu.lv 1)7 

The P imp] in 98 

ict from " A New England Le- 

08 

99 

written on hearing of the Death 

i of New Vmk 100 

i ins Manuscripts pre- 

i a Friend 100 

TheReward loo 

1 101 

Lui I Cooper 101 

Charming 102 

To the Memory of Charles I!. Storrs.. 103 

Lines on the Death of S. O. Torrey... 104 

A Lament 104 

Da i : R he I i 104 

DanielNeall 105 

To my Friend on the Death of his Sis- 
ter.' 106 

Gone -. 106 

The Lake ride 107 

The Dill top 107 

On receiving an Eagle's Quill from 

Lake Superior 108 

Memories 108 

The Legend of St. Mark 109 

The Well of Loch Maree 110 

To my Siskr 110 

Autumn Thoughts 110 

Calefin Bo ton 1692 110 

To Pius IX Ill 

t , 111 

bod 112 

The ( Ihristian Tourists 112 

The Men of Old .- 112 

Ti I' i ion at Brussels.... 113 

'I'h • Wish of Co-Day 114 

Our State 114 

ii 114 

i'i and I larvest 114 

To A. K 115 

Fur. Chapel of the Hermits, and other 
Poems. 

The Chapel of the Hermits 115 

Misi i i.i.w 

119 

The r [eg 120 

in State Street 120 

The Peace of Europe 1852 12] 

Wordsworth 12] 

To 1 22 

I Peace 122 



Benedicite 132 

Pictures 123 

I In lie 123 

Astrsea 124 

Invocation 124 

The Cross 124 

Eva 125 

To Fredrika Bremer 125 

April 125 

Stanzas for the Times — 1850 126 

A Sabbath Scene 126 

Remembrance 127 

Tli-.- I'oor Voter on Election Day 128 

Trust 128 

Kathleen 128 

First-day Thoughts 1 20 

Kossuth ' 120 

To my old Schoolmaster 120 

The Panorama, and other Poems. 

The Panorama 131 

MlSCELL V.NEOI S. 

Summer by the Lakeside 135 

The Hermit of the Thcbaid 136 

Burns 137 

William Forster 138 

Rantoul 139 

The Dream of Pio Nono 139 

Tattler 140 

Lines 141 

The Voices 141 

The Hero 142 

My Dream 142 

The Barefoot Boy 143 

Flowers in Winter 144 

The Rendition 144 

Lines 1 45 

The Fruit-Gift 145 

A Memory 145 

To C. S. 146 

The Kansas Emigrants 140 

Song of Slaves in the Desert 146 

Lines 146 

The New Exodus 147 

The Haschish 147 



Ballads. 



Mary Garvin 1 48 

Maud Muller 150 

The Ranger 151 

Later Poems. 

The Last Walk in Autumn 153 

The .Mayflowers 150 

Burial of Barbour 1 50 

To Pennsylvania 150 

The Pass of the Sierra 157 

The ( lonquest of Finland 158 

A Lav of Old Time 158 

What of the Day? 150 

The First Flowers 1 50 

My Namesake 159 

Home Ballads. 

The Witch's Daughter lfil 

The Garrison of Cape Ann 163 

The Prophecy of Samuel Sewall 104 

Skipper [reson's Ride 105 

Telling the Bees 1C.7 

The Sycamores 168 

The Double lleai l< il Snake of Newbury 100 

The Swan Song of Parson Avery.... 170 

The Truce of Piscataqua 170 

My Playmate 172 



CONTENTS. 



IX 



Poems and Lyrics. 

The Shadow and the Light 1".:> 

The.Giffcof Tritemius 174 

The Eve of Election 174 

The Over-Heart 175 

In Remembrance of Joseph Sturge.... L16 

Trinitas 177 

The Old Burying-Ground 177 

The Pipes at Lucknow L78 

My Psalm 179 

Le Marais du Cygne 1 79 

" The Rock " in El ( Ihor 1 SO 

On a Prayer-Book 180 

To J. T. F 183 

The Palm-Tree 181 

Lines for the Burns Fesl Lval 182 

The Red River Voyageur is-.' 

Kenoza Lake 182 

ToG. B. C 183 

The Sisters 183 

Lines for an Agricultural Exhibition. 183 

The Preacher 184 

The Quaker Alumni 186 

Brown of Ossawatomie 188 

From Perugia 189 

For an Autumn Festival 190 



In War Time. 



To Samuel E. and Harriet W. Sewall. 

Thy Will he dene 

A Word for the Hour 

" Ein festft Burg ist unser Gott " 

To John C. Fremont 

The Watchers 

To Englishmen 

A.s1 ra a at the < 'apitol 

The Battle Autumn of 1862 

Mithridates at Chios ' 

The Proclamation 

Anniversary Poem 

At Port Royal 

Barbara Frietchie 



L90 
190 
10! 
191 
191 
192 
192 
193 
193 
194 
194 
194 
195 
196 



PAGE 

Kallundborg Church £23 

The Dead Ship of Harpswell 224 

The Palatine 225 

Abraham Davenport 226 

National Lyrics. 

The Mantle of St. John De Matha .... 221 

What the Birds said 228 

Laus Deo ! 229 

The Peace Autun n .20 

To the Thirty-ninth Congress 2:i0 

Occ \sional Poems. 

The Eternal Goodness 230 

Our Master 231 

The Vanishers 232 

Revisited 233 

The Common Question 233 

Bryant on hie Birth-day 233 

Hymn for the Opening of Thomas Stan- 
King's House of Worship. 1804. 234 
Thomas Starr King 234 

Among the Hills, and other Poems. 

Prelude 235 

Among the Hills 236 



Ballad* 



Cobbler Keezar's Vision 197 

Amy Wentworth 199 

The Countess .' 201 



Occasional Poem-. 

Naples.— 1800 

The Summons 

The Waiting 

Mountain Pictures : 

i. Franconia from the Pemigewas- 

set 

II. Monadnock from Wachuset 

Our River 

Andrew Rykman's Prayer 

The Cry of a Lost Soul 

Italy 

The River Path 

A Memorial M. A. C 

Hymn sung at Christmas by the Scho- 
lars of St. Helena's Island, S. C 



203 
203 
203 



Snow-Bound — A Winter Idvl. 



204 
204 
204 
205 
206 
207 
207 
207 

208 
209 



The Tent on the Beach, and other Poems. 

The Tent on the Beach 215 

The Wreck of Rivermouth 216 

The Grave by t he Lake 218 

The Brother'of Mercy 220 

The Changeling 221 

The Maids of Attitash 222 



Mi-. ELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The Clear Vision 

The Dole of Jarl Thorkell. 

The Two Rabbis 

The Meeting 

The Answer 

G. L. S 



Freedom in Brazil 

Divine Compassion .... 

Lines on a Fly-leaf 

Hymn for the House of Worship at 
Georgetown 

Miriam, and other Poems. 



239 
240 

241 
241 
24:; 
-.4:; 
244 
244 
244 

245 



To Frederick A. P. Barnard 246 

Miriam ' 24(3 

Miscellaneous Poems. 

Norembega 250 

Nauhaught, the Deacon 251 

In School-Days X!51 

Garibaldi . . .' 252 

After Election 252 

My Triumph 252 

The Hive at Gettysburg 253 

Howard at Atlanta 253 

To Lydia Maria Child 254 

The Prayer-Seeker 254 

Poems for Public Occasions. 

A Spiritual Manifestation 255 

"The Laurels" 256 

Hymn 256 

The Pennsylvania Pilgrim, and other 
Poems. 

Francis Daniel Pastorius 257 

Prelude 258 

The Pennsylvania Pilgrim 2o» 

Miscellaneous. 

The Pageant 263 

The Singer 265 

Chicago 365 



CONTENTS. 



PAGl 

My Birthday 266 

lh' Brewing ol Soma 200 

\ w onian 26.7 

Disarmainenl 267 

I he Robin 267 

The Sisters 268 

uerite 268 

K in : Vol r and Elsie 20!) 

The Three Bells 271 

Hazel-Blossoms. 

Prologue 271 

Sumner 272 

The Prayer ol Agassiz 274 

lip friend's Burial 275 

John Underhill 27:. 

In Quest : 276 

A Sea Dream 277 

A Mystery 278 

Conductor Bradley 278 

Child-Songs .' 278 

The Golden Wedding of Longwood. . . . -~\) 

Kinsman 280 

Vesta 280 

The Healer 280 

A ( Ihristmas ' larmen 280 

Hymn 28] 

"in ms r.Y Elizabeth II. Whittier. 

The Dream of Argyle 281 

Lines written on the Departure of Jo- 
seph Sturge 282 

John Quincv Adams 282 

Dr. Kane in" Cuba 283 

Ladv Franklin 283 

Night and Death 283 

The Meeting Waters 284 

The Wedding Veil 284 

Charity 284 

The Vision of Echard, and other Poems. 

The Vision of Echard 285 

The Witch of Wenham 286 

Sunset mi the Bearcamp 288 

The Seeking of the Waterfall 289 

June on the Merrimac 290 

Ilvmn (.f the Dunkers— 1738 291 

In' the "Old South" - 1677 291 

Lexington — 177"> -JD2 

< lentennial Hvmn 292 

Thiers ' 293 

Fitz-Greene Halleck 293 

William Francis Bartlett 293 



PAGE 

The Two Angels 294 

The Library 294 

The Henchman 294 

King Solomon and the Ants 295 

Red Riding-Hood 295 

The Pressed < ientian 296 

Overruled 296 

Hymn sung at the Anniversary of the 

Children's Mission, Boston, 1878 290 

Giving and Taking 296 

" I was a Stranger and ye 'look me in " 296 

At School-Close 297 

At Eventide. 297 

The Problem 297 

Resj se— 1877 298 

Tin. King's Missive, and other Poems. 

The Prelude 298 

The King's Missive 298 

St. Martin's Summer 300 

The Dead Feast of the Kol-Folk 301 

The Lost Occasion 301 

The Emancipation Group 302 

The Jubilee Singers 302 

Within the Gate 303 

The Khan's Devil 303 

Ahram Morrison 304 

Voyage of the Jettie 305 

Our Autocrat 306 

Garrison •'!( i7 

A Name :;i>7 

Bayard Tavlor 308 

The Minister's Daughter 308 

My Trust 309 

The Trailing Arbutus 310 

Bv their Works :;io 

The Word .Ill) 

The Book :;i(> 

Requirement 311 

Help 311 

Utterance .'ill 

Inscriptions. 

On a Sun-Dial 311 

On a Fountain 311 

Oriental Maxims. 

The Inward Judge 311 

Laving up Treasure 311 

( 'o'ndiict 311 

Notes. 313 

Index 323 



MOGG MEGONE. 



1835. 

[The story of Mogg Megone has been considered by the author only as a framework Eor sketches of the .scenery 

of New England, and of its early inhabitants. In portraying the Indian character, he has followed, as closely as 
his story would admit, the rough but natural delineations of Church, Mayhew, Charlevoix, and Roger Williams; 
and in BO doing he h&f discarded much of the romance which poets and novelists have thrown around 

the ill-fated red man.] 



PART I. 

Who stands on that cliff, like a figure of stone, 
Unrnoving and tall in the light of the sky, 
Where the spray of the cataract sparkles on 
high, 
Lonely and sternly, save Mogg .Megone ? ' 
( dose to the verge of the rock is he. 

While beneath him the Saco its work is doing, 
Hurrying down to its grave, the sea, 
And slow through the rock its pathway hew- 
ing ! 
Far down, through the mist of the falling river, 
Which rises up like an incense ever, 
Tin- splintered points of the crags are seen, 
With water howling and vexed between, 
While the scooping whirl of the pool beneath 
Seems an open throat, with its granite teeth ! 

But Mogg Megone never trembled yet 

Wherever his eye or his foot was set. 

He is watchful : each form in the moonlight dim, 

Of rock or of tree, is seen of him : 

He listens ; each sound from afar is caught, 

The faintest shiver of leaf and limb : 

But he sees not the waters, which foam and fret, 

Whose moonlit spray has his moccasin wet, — 

And the roar of their rushing, he hears it not. 

The moonlight, through the open bough 

Of the gnarl'd beech, whose naked root 

Coils like a serpent at his foot, 
Falls, checkered, on the Indian's brow. 
His head is bare, save only where 
Waves in the wind one lock of hair, 

Reserved for him, whoe'er he be, 
More mighty than Megone in strife, 

When breast to breast an 1 knee to knee, 
Above the fallen warrior's life 
Gleams, quick and keen, the scalping-knife. 

Megone hath his knife and hatchet and gun, 
And his gaudy and tasselled blanket on : 
His knife hath a handle with gold inlaid. 
And magic words on its polished blade, — 
'T was the gift of Castine - to Mogg Megone, 
For a scalp or twain from the Yengees turn : 
His gun was the gift of the Tarrantine, 

And Modocawando's wives had strung 
The brass and the beads, which tinkle and shine 
On the polished breach, and broad bright line 

Of beaded wampum around it hung. 

What seeks Megone '? His foes are near,— 
Grey Jocelyn's a eye is never sleeping, 

And the garrison lights are burning clear, 
Where Phillips' 4 men their watch are keeping. 



Let him hie him away through the dank river fog, 
Nevi r rustling the boughs nor displacing the 
rocks, 
For the eves and the ears which are watching for 
Mogg 
Are keener than those of the wolf or the fox. 

He starts, — there 's a rustle among the leaves : 

Another, — the click of his gun is heard ! 
A footstep, — is it the step of Cleaves, 

With Indian blood on his English sword ? 
Steals Harmon 3 down from the sands of York, 
With hand of iron and foot of cork ? 
Has Scamman, versed in Indian wile, 
For vengeance left his vine-hung isle ? 6 
Hark ! at that whistle, soft and low, 

How lights the eye of Mogg Megone ! 
A smile gleams o'er his dusky brow, — 

" Boon welcome, Johnny Bonython ! " 

Out steps, with cautious foot and slow, 
And quick, keen glances to and fro, 

The hunted outlaw, Bonython ! ' 
A low, lean, swarthy man is he, 
With blanket-garb and buskined knee, 

And naught of English fashion on ; 
For he hates the race from whence he sprung, 
And he couches hie words in the Indian tongue. 

: 

! " Hush, — let the Sachem's voice be weak ; 
; The water-rat shall hear him speak, — 
; The owl shall whoop in the white man's ear, 
! That Mogg Megone, with his scalps, is here ! " 
: He pauses, — dark, over cheek and brow, 
j A flush, as of shame, is stealing now : 

" Sachem ! " he says, " let me have the land, 

Which stretches away upon either hand, 

As far about as my feet can stray 
\ In the half of a gentle summer's day, 

From the leaping brook 8 to the Saco river, — 
! And tho fair-haired girl, thou hast sought of me, 

Shall sit in the Sachem's wigwam, and be 
The wife of Mogg Megone forever." 

There 's a sudden light in the Indian's glance, 
A moment's trace of powerful feeling, 
' : Of love or triumph, or both perchance, 
Over his proud, calm features stealing. 
"The words of my father are very good ; 
He shall have the land, and water, and wood ; 
And lie who harms the Sagamore John, 
Shall feel the knife of Mogg Megone ; 
But the fawn of the Yengees shall sleep on my 

breast, 
And the bird of the clearing shall sing in my 
nest." 



12 



MOGG MEGONE. 



" But, father! "—an. 1 the Indian's hand 

Fall's gentlj on the white man's arm, 
And with a smile as shrewdly bland 

,,■ deep voire is nIciw and calm, — 
" Where is mj lather's sinking-bird, — 

nnii\ 1 3 e, and Bunset hair ? 
1 know I have my father's word. 

And that his word is good and l'air ; 
But u ill nn me where 

shall go and look lor his bride ?— 
For he sees her not bj her father's side." 

The dark, stern eye of lionet lion 

Flashes over the features of Blogg Megone, 

In one of those glances \\ hich search within ; 
But the stolid calm of the Indian alon e 

Remains where the trace of emotion has beeu 
" Does the Sachem doubt ? Let him go with me, 
And the eyes of the Sachem his bride shall see." 

Cautious and slow, with pausi s oft. 
And watchful eyes and whispers soft, 
The twain are stealing through the- wood, 

Leaving the downward-rushing liood, 
Whose deep and solemn roar behind 
Grows fainter on the evening wind. 

Hark ! — is that the angry howl 

Of the wolf, the hills among V — 
Or the hooting of the owl, 

On his leafy cradle swung ? — 
Quickly glancing, to and fro, 
Listening to each sound they go 
Round tin' columns of the pine, 

Indistinct, in shadow, seeming 
Like some old and pillared shrine; 
With the soft and wdiite moonshine, 
Round the foliage-tracery shed 
Of each column's branching head, 

For its lamps of worship gleaming! 
And the sounds awakened there. 

In the pine-leaves line and small, 

Soft and sweetly musical, 
By the fingers of the air, 
For the anthem's dying fall 
Lingering round some temple's wall ! 

Niche and cornice ro I ami round 

Wailing like the ghost of sound ! 
Is not Nature's worship thus, 

Ceaseless ever, going on V 
Hath it not a voice for us 

In the thunder, or the tone 
Of the leaf-harp faint and small, 

Speaking to the unsealed ear 

Words oi blended love and fear, 
Of the mighty Soul of all ? 

Naught had the twain of thoughts like these 
As they wound along through the crowded trees, 
Where never had rung the axeman's stroke 
On the gnarled trunk of the rough-barked oak ;— 
Climbing the dead trie's mossy log, 

Breaking the mesh of the bramble fine, 

Turning aside the wild grapevine, 
And ligbl I; aking bog 

Whose surface sliakes at the leap of the frog, 
And out of whose pools the ghostly fog 

Creeps into the chill moonshine ! 
Yet, even that Indian's ear had heard 

reaching of the Holy Word : 
Sanchekantauket'a isle of sand 

ace his father's hunting land, 
Where zealous Biacoomes" stood, — 

The wild a]. est le of the wood, 

Shook In mi liis sun I t in- fear of harm, 

And trampled on the I'ow waw's charm ; 

Until the wizard's curses hung 

Suspended on his palsying t> 

And the fierce warrior, grim and tall, 

Trembled before the forest Paul ! 



A cottage hidden in the wood, — 

Red through its seams alight is glowing, 
On rock ami hough and tree-trunk rude, 

A narrow lustre throwing. 
" Who s there ? " a char, hrm voice demands ; 

" Hold, Ruth, — 't is I, the .Sagamore ! " 
Quick, at l lie summons, hasty hands 

Unclose the bolted door ; 
And on the outlaw's daughter shine 
The Hashes of the kindled pine. 

Tall and erect the maiden stands, 

Like some young priestess of the wood, 

The freeliorn child of Solitude, 

And bearing still the wild and rude, 
Vet noble trace of Nature's hands. 
Her dark brown cheek has caught its stain 
More from the sunshine than the rain ; 
Yet, where her long fair hair is parting, 
A pure white brow into light is starting ; 
Ami, where the folds of her blanket sever, 
Are a neck and bosom as white as ever 
The foam-wreaths rise on the leaping river. 
But in the convulsive quiver and grip 
Of the muscles around her bloodless lip, 

There is something painful and sad to see ; 
Ami her eye has a glance more sternly wild 
Than even that of a forest child 

In its fearless and untamed freedom should be. 
Yet, seldom in hall or court are seen 
So queenly a form and so noble a mien, 

As freely and smiling she welcomes them 
there, — 
Her outlawed sire and Mogg Megone : 

"Pray, father, how does thy hunting fare? 

And, Sachem, say, — does Scamman wear, 
In spite of thy promise, a scalp of his own ''. " 
Hurried and light is the maiden's tone ; 

But a fearful meaning lurks within 
Her glance, as it questions the eye of Megone, — 

An awful meaning of guilt and sin ! — 
The Indian hath opened his blanket, and there 
Hangs a human scalp by its long damp hair ! 
With hand upraised, with quick-drawn breath, 
She meets that ghastly sign of death. 
In one long, glassy, spectral stare 
The enlarging eye is fastened there, 
As if that mesh of pale brown hair 

Had power to change at sight alone, 
Even as the fearful locks which wound 
Medusa's fatal forehead round, 

The gazer into stone. 
With such a look Herodias read 
The features of the bleeding head, 
So looked the mad Moor on his dead, 
Or the young Cenci as she stood, 
O'er- dabbled with a father's blood ! 

Look ! — feeling melts that frozen glance, 
It moves that marble countenance, 
As if at once within her strove 
Pity with shame, and hate with love. 
The Past recalls its joy and pain, 
Old memories rise before her brain, — 
The lips which love's embraces met, 
The hand her tears of parting wet, 
The voice whose pleading tones beguiled 
The pleased ear of the forest-child, — 
And tears she may no more repress 
Reveal her lingering tenderness. 

O, woman wronged can cherish hate 

More deep and dark than manhood may; 
But when the mockery of Fate 

Hath left Revenge its chosen way, 
And the fell curse, which years have nursed, 
Full on the spoiler's head hath burst, — 
When all her wrong, and shame, and pain, 
Burns fiercely on his heart and brain, — 
Still lingers something of the spell 



MOGG MEGONE. 




' The Indian hath opened his blanket.' 



Which bound her to the traitor's bosom, — 
Still, midst the vengeful tires of hell. 
Some flowers of old affection blossom. 

John Bonython's eyebrows together are drawn 
With a fierce expression of wrath and scorn, — 
He hoarsely whispers, " Ruth, beware ! 

Is this the time to be playing the fool, — 
Crying over a paltry lock of hair, 

Like a love-sick girl at school ? — 
Curse on it ! — an Indian can see and hear : 
Away, — and prepare our evening cheer ! " 

How keenly the Indian is watching now 
Her tearful eye and her varying brow, — 

With a serpent eye, which kindles and burns, 

Like a fiery star in the upper air : 
On sire and daughter his fierce glance turns : — 

' ' Has my old white father a scalp to spare ? 

For his young one loves the pale brown hair 
Of the scalp of an English dog far more 
Than Mogg Megone, or his wigwam floor ; 

Go, — Mogg is wise : he will keep his land, — 

And Sagamore John, when he feels with his 
hand, 
Shall miss his scalp where it grew before." 

The moment's gust of grief is gone, — 
The lip is clenched, — the tears are still, — 

God pity thee, Ruth Bonython ! 
With what a strength of will 

Are nature's feelings in thy breast. 

As with an iron hand, repressed ! 

An I how, upon that nameless woe, 

Quick as the pulse can come and go, 

While shakes the unsteadfast knee, and yet 

The bosom heaves, — the eye is wet, — 

Has thy dark spirit power to stay 

The heart's wild current on its way ? 

And whence that baleful strength of guile, 



Which over that still working brow 
And tearful eye and cheek can throw 

The- mockery of a smile ? 
Warned by her father's blackening frown, 
With one strong effort crushing down 
(J nef, hate, remorse, she meets again 
The savage murderer's sullen gaze, 
And scarcely look or tone betrays 
How the heart strives beneath its chain. 

" Is the Sachem angry, — angry with Ruth, 
Because she cries with an ache in her tooth, 1 " 
Which would make a Sagamore jump and cry, 
And look about with a woman's eye ? 
No, — Ruth will sit in the Sachem's door 
And braid the mats for his wigwam floor, 
And broil his fish and tender fawn, 
And weave his wampum, and grind his corn, — 
For she loves the brave and the wise, and none 
Are braver and wiser than Mogg Megone ! " 

The Indian's brow is clear once more : 

With grave, calm face, and half-shut eye, 
He sits upon the wigwam floor, 

And watches Ruth go by, 
Intent upon her household care ; 

And ever and anon, the while, 
Or on the maiden, or her fare, 
Which smokes in grateful promise there, 

Bestows his quiet smile. 

I Ah, Mogg Megone ! — what dreams are thine, 
But those which love's own fancies dress, — 
The sum of Indian happiness ! — 
A wigwam, where the warm sunshine 
Looks in among the groves of pine, — 
A stream, where, round thy light canoe, 
The trout and salmon dart in view, 
And the fair girl, before thee now, 
Spreading thy mat with hand of snow, 



1 1 



MOGG MEGONE. 



« >r pl\ ing, in the dews of morn, 

ids! i ',\ patch "i i 
( )r offering up, al >\ e, to 
Tin birchen dish of hominj ! 

From i !if rode board of Bonython, 

l and iucco >one, — 

For l"ii wood 

ku iw in I w.i. it of food, 
irntasl id of £ al cheer, — 

Wit b head averte I ear, 

She stands by the side of her a tstere sire, 

. al tun >, the unequal fire 
Wit h t tie \ illow '< i pine tree, 

i bey kindle, falls 
On the i ooi tnd iJ black log walls, 

And over it- inmates throe. 

From Sagamore Bonython's hunting flask 

'I'll fire water burns at the lip of Megone : 
" Will the Sachem hear what his father shall ask '? 

Will he make his mark, that it may be known, 
On the speal gives I he html, 

From the Sachem's own, to his father's hand ? " 
The fire water shines in the Indian's eyes, 

As be rises, the white .n's bidding to do : 

" Wuttamut Moggiswise, — 

For the water he drinks is strong- and new, — 
Mogg's hmrt is greai ! — will be shut his hand, 
\\ ben bis Eather asks for a Little land ? " — 
With unsl a l\ fingei i, the Indian has drawn 

i • parchment the shape of a hunter's how, 
•' Boon water, — boon water,- -Sagamore John ! 

Wuttamuttata — weekan ! our hearts will grow!" 
lie drinks yel deeper, — be mutters low,— 
He reels on his bear skin to and fro, — 
Mis head falls down on bis naked breast, — 
He struggles, and sinks to a drunken rest. 

■' Humph— drunk as a beast ! "—and Bonython's 
brow 

Is darker than ever with evil thought — 
"The fool has signed his warrant; but how 

And when shall the deed be wrought? 

Ruth ! why, what the devil is there, 
To fix thy gaze in that empty air? — 
Speak, Ruth ! by my soul, if I thought that tear, 
Which shames thyself and our purpose here. 
Were shed for that cursed and pale faced dog, 
3calp hangs from the belt of M 

And whose beastly soul is in Satan's keeping, — 
This — this!" — he dashes his hand upon 
The rattling stock of his loaded gun, — 

" Should send thee with him to do thy weeping!" 

" father ! " — the eye of Bonython 
Sinks at that low, sepulchral tone, 
Hollow and deep, as it were spoken 

Bj the Milling ing tongue of death, — 
Or from some statue's lips had hrokon, — 

A sound without a br 
"Father! — my lit'- I value less 
Than yonder fool his gaudy dress; 
And how it ends it. matters not, 
By heart-break or by rifle-shot; 

.iic awhile the scoff and threat, — 
Our business is not finished yet." 

rl, -I only ; 
To draw up again tie le,u unbent. 
Harm thee, my Ruth! I only sought 
To frighten off thy gloom 

be mends!'' lie seeks to clasp 

I I I - daughtei 's cold, damp hand in his. 

Ruth startles from her father's grasp, 
As if each qi rve and muscle 
[nstincl ively, the touch of guilt. 
Through all their subtle sympathies, 



He points her to the sleeping Mogg : 
■• What, shall lie done with yonder dog ? 
Scamman is dead, and revenge' is thine, — 
Tin' deed is signed and the kind is mine ; 

And this drunken fool is of use no more, 
Save as thy hopeful bridegroom, and sooth, 
'T were Christian mercy to finish him, Ruth, 

Now, while he lies like a beast on our iloor, — 
If not for thine, at least for his sake, 
Rather than let the poor dog awake 

To drain my flask, and claim as his bride 

Such a forest devil to run by his side, — 
Such a Wetuomanit 1 - as thou wouldst make ! " 

He laughs at his jest. Hush— what is there ? — 
The sleeping Indian is strii ing to rise, , 

With his knife in his hand, and glaring eyes ' 
" Wagh ! — Mogg will have the pale-face's hail', 

for his knife is sharp, and his fingers can help 
The hair to pull and the skin to perl. 
Let him cry like a woman and twist like an eel, 
The great Captain Scamman must lose his 

scalp ! 
And Ruth, when she sees it, shall dance with 
Mogg." 
His eyes are fixed, — hut his lips draw in, — 
With a low, hoarse chuckle, and fiendish grin, — 
Ami he sinks again, like a senseless log. 

Ruth does not speak, — she does not stir; 
Rut she gazes down on the murderer, 
Whose broken and dreamful slumbers tell 
Too much for her ear of that deed of hell. 
i She sees the knife, with its slaughter red, 
; And the dark lingers clenching the bearskin bed ! 
j What thoughts of horror and madness whirl 
j Through the burning brain of that fallen girl ! 

. 
] .John Bonython lifts his gun to his eye, 
.Its muzzle is close to the Indian's ear, — 
But he drops it again. " Some one may lie nigh, 
And I would not, that even the wolves should 
hear." 
He draws his knife from its deer-skin belt,— 
Its edge with his fingers is slowly felt ; — 
" Kneeling down on one knee, by the Indian's side, 
From his throat he opens the blanket wide ; 
And twice or thrice he feebly essays 
A trembling hand with the knife to raise. 

" I cannot," — he mutters, — " did he not save 
My life from a cold and wintry grave. 
When the storm came down from Agioochook, 
And the north-wind howled, and the tree-tops 

shook, — 

Ami I strove, in the drifts of the rushing snow, 
Till my knees grew weak and 1 could not go, 
And I felt the cold to my vitals i reep, 
And my heart's blood stiffen, and pulses sleep ! 
I cannot strike him — Ruth Bonython ! 
In the Devil's name, tell me— what's to be 
done V " 

< ), when the soul, once pore and high, 
Is stricken down from Virtue's sky. 
As, with the downcast star of morn, 
Some gems of light are with it. drawn, — 
And, through its night of darkness, play 
Some tokens of its primal day, — 
Some lofty feelings linger still, — 

'I be strength to dare, the nerve to meet 

Whatever threatens with defeat 
Its all-indomitable will ! — 
But lacks the mean of mind and heart, 

Though eager for the gains of crime, 

Oft, at his chosen place and time, 
The strength to bear his evil part; 
And, shielded by his very \ ice, 
Escapes from Crime by Cowardice. 



MOGG- MEGONE. 



15 



Ruth starts erect, — with bloodshot eye, 

And lips drawn tight across her teeth. 

Showing their locked embrace beneath, 

In the red firelight : — " Mogg must die ! 

(Jive me the knife ! " — The outlaw turns, 

Shuddering in heart and limb, away,— 

But, fitfully there, the hearth-fire burns, 

Ami he Bees on the wall strange shadows play. 
A lifted arm, a tremulous blade. 
Arc dimly pictured in light and shade, 
Plunging down in the darkness. Hark, that 
cry 
Again — and again— he sees it fall, — 
That shadowy arm down the lighted wall! 

II bears quick footsteps — a shape Hits by — 
The door on its rusted hinges creaks : — 
"Ruth — daughter Ruth ! " the outlaw shrieks. 
But no sound comes back, — he is standing alone 
By the mangled corse of Mogg Megone ! 



PART n. 

'T is morning over Nbrridgewock, — 

On tree and wigwam, wave and rock. 
Bathed in the autumnal sunshine, stirred 
At intervals by breeze and bird, 
And wearing all the hues which glow 
In heaven's own pure and perfect bow, 

That glorious picture of the air, 
Which summer's light-robed angel forms 
On the dark ground of fading storms, 

With pencil dipped in sunbeams there, — 
And, stretching out, on either hand, 
O'er all that wide and unshorn land, 

Till, weary of its gorgeousness, 
The aching and- the dazzled i 
Rests, gladdened, on the calm blue sky, — 

Slumbers the mighty wilder 
The oak, upon the windy hill. 

Its dark green burthen upward heaves — 
The hemlock broods above its rill, 
Its cone-like foliage darker still, 

A .' inst the birch's graceful stem, 
And the rough walnut-bough receives 
The sun upon its crowded leaves, 

Each colored like a topaz gem ; 

And the tall maple wears with them 
The coronal, which autumn gives, 

The brief, bright sign of ruin near. 

The hectic of a dying year ! 

The hermit priest, who lingers now 
On the Bald Mountain's shrubless brow, 
The gray and thunder-smitten pile 
Which marks afar the Desert Isle, 13 

While gazing on th ■ scene below, 
May half forget th • dreams of home, 

That nightly with his slumb >rs come, — ■ 
The tranquil skies of sunny Fr 
The peasants harvest song and dance, 
The vines around the hillsides wreathing 
The soft airs midst their 'dust irs breathing, 
Tiie wings which dipped, the stars which shone 
Within thy bosom, blue Garonne! 
And round the Abbey's shadowed wall, 
At morning spring and even-fall, 

Sweet voices in the still air singing, — 
The chant of many a holy hymn, — 

The solemn bell of vespers ringing, — 
And hallowed torchlight falling dim 

On pictured saint and seraphim ! 
For here beneath him lies unrolled, 
Bathed deep in morning's flood of gold, 
A vision gorgeous as the dream 
Of the beatified may seem, 

When, as his (Jinn- :h's legends say, 
Borne upward in ecstatic bliss. 

The rapt enthusiast soars away 
Unto a brighter world than this : 



A mortal's glimpse beyond the pale, — 
A moment's lifting of the veil ! . 

Far eastward o'er the lovely bay, 
Penobscot's clustered wigwams lay ; 
And gently from that Indian town 
The verdant hillside slopes adown, 
To whi re the sparkling waters play 

Upon the yellow sands below; 
And shooting round the winding shores 

Of narrow capes, and isles which lie 

Slumbering to ocean's lullaby, — 
With birchen boat and glancing oars, 

The red men to their tishing go; 
While from their planting ground is borne 
The treasure of the golden corn, 
By laughing girls, whose dark eyes glow 
Wild through the locks which o'er them flow. 
The wrinkled squaw, whose toil is done, 
Sits on her bear-skin in the sun, 
Watching the buskers, with a smile 
For each full ear which swells the pile ; 
And the old chief, who nevermore 
May bend the bow or pull the oar, 
Smokes gravely in his wigwam door, 
Or slowly shapes, with axe of stone, 
The arrow-head from flint and bone. 

Beneath the westward turning eye • 
A thousand wooded islands lie, — 
Gems of the waters ! — with each hue 
Of brightness set in ocean's blue. 
Each bears aloft its tuft of ti 

Touched by the pencil of the frost, 
And, with the motion of each breeze, 

A moment seen, — a moment lost, — 

ting and blent, confused and tossed, 

The brighter with the darker crosse 
Their thousand tints of beauty glow 
Down in the restless waves below, 

And tremble in the sunny skies, 
As if, from waving bough to bough, 

Flitted the birds of paradise. 
There sleep Placentia's group, — and there 
Pere Breteaux marks the hour of prayer ; 
And there, beneath tiie sea-worn cliff, 

On which the Father's hut is seen, 
The Indian stays his rocking skill', 

Ami peers the hemlock-boughs between, 
Half trembling, as he seeks to look 
Upon the Jesuit's Cross and Book. 14 
There, gloomily against the sky 
The Dark Isles rear their summits high ; 
And Desert Rock, abrupt and bare, 
Lifts its gray turrets in the air, — 
Seen from afar, like some stronghold 
Built by the ocean kings of old ; 
And, faint as smoke-wreath white and thin, 
Swells in the north vast Katahdin : 
And, wandering from its marshy feet, 
The broad Penobscot comes to meet 

And mingle with his own bright bay. 
Slow sweep his dark and gathering floods. 
Arched over by the ancient wools, 
Which Time, in those dim solitudes, 

Wielding the dull axe of Decay, 

Alone hath ever shorn away. 

Not thus, within the woods which hide 
The beauty of thy azure tide, 

And with their falling timbers block 
Thy broken currents, Kennebec! 
Gazes the white man on the wreck 

Of the down-trodden Xoiridgewock, — 
In one lone village hemmed at length, 
In battle shorn of half their strength, 
Turned, like the panther in his lab.-. 

With his fast-flowing life-blood wet, 
For one last struggle of despair, 

Wounded and faint, but tameless yet ! 



[6 



MOGG MEGOXE. 



Onreaped, upon I ! lands, 

ads : 
No sho 
The aspect of the verj child 
Scowls with a meaning sad and wild 
Of b 

infant Norridgewock 
to lift the tomahawk ; 

i wa\ , 
To mimic, in Ins frightful play, 

The scalping ol an English toe: 
Wreathes on bis lip a horrid o 
Burns, like a snake's, his small eye, while 

Somi i his Ijlow. 

The fisher, as he drops his lis 
Starts, when lie sees the hazels quiver 
Along the margin of the river, 
Lo iks up and down the rippling tide, 

rasps the firelock ;n his side. 
Foi Bomazeen 1S from Tacconock 
Has sent his runners to Norridgewock 
With tidings thai Moulton and Harmon of York 
Par up i he ri\ er have come : 

.1 their boats,— thej have entered the 
wood. 
And filled the depths of the solitude 
With the sound of the ranger's drum. 

On the brow of a hill, which slopes to meet 
The flowing river, and bathe its feet, — 
The bare-washed rock, and the drooping grass, 
And '.''■■ fine, as the waters pass, — 

A rude and unshapel] chapel stands, 
Built up in that wild by unskilled hands, 
Yet the traveller knows it a place of prayer, 
For the holy sign of the cross is there : 
And should he chance at that place to be, 
Of a Sabbath mom, or some hallowed day, 
When prayers are made and masses arc said, 
Some for the living and some for the dead, 
Well might that travi Her start to see 

The tall dark tonus, that take their way 
Prom the birch canoe, on the river-shore. 
And the fores! paths, to that chapel door ; 
And marvel to mark the naked knees 

And the dusky foreheads bending there, 
While, in coarse white vesture, ovi r these 

In blessing or in prayer, 
Stretching abroad his thin pale hands. 
Like a shrouded ghost, the Jesuit 16 stands. 

Two forms are now in that chapel dint, 
The Jesuit, silent and sad and pale, 
Anxiouslj heeding some fearful tale, 

Which a stranger is telling him. 

Thai stranger's garb is soiled and torn. 

And wet with dew and loosely worn ; 
ir neglected hair falls down 

O'e: chi i !.- with wind and sunshine brown ; 
ill, in that disordered face, 

The J( can trace 

Tl o race 

Which, hah ' m scarcely less, 

Even now. than perfect lovelh 

With drooping head, and voice so low 
I ha i arce it meets the Jesuit's ears, — 

While through her clasped lingers How, 

Prom the heart's fountain, hot and slow, 
Her penitent ial tears, — 

She tells t In story of the woe 
And evil of her j 

"O fa i with me ; my hi 

[s sick and death like, and my brain 
S terns girdled wit h a fierj chain, 

Whoe links will nevei part, 

And never cool a 
Bi ai with me while I -peal.;, — hut turn 
Away that gentle eye, the while, — 



The fires of guilt more fiercely burn 
I teneal h ii s holy smile ; 

Por half 1 fancy I can 

My mother's sainted look in thee. 

" My dear lost mothei ! sad and pale 
Mournfully sinking day by day, 

And vi t on life as frail 

A frosted l< a i es, that, thin and gray, 
1 lang feebly on their parent spray. 

And t remble in the 

Y"et watching o'er my childishness 

With | atient E Iness, not t he I 

Por all the agony which kept 

Her blm ml, while 1 sli pt ; 

And checking e\ er\ tear and ■ 

That haply might- have waked my own, 

And bearing still, without, offi 

My idle words, and petulance ; 

Reproving with a tear, — and, while 

The tooth of pain was keenly preying 

I pon her very heart, rep: 
My brief repentance with a smile. 

" ( ) in her meek, forgiving eye 

There was a brightness not of mirth, 
A light whose tdear intensity 

Was borrowed not of earth. 
Along her cheek a deepening red 
Told where the feverish hectic fed,; 

And yet, each fatal token gave 
To the mild beauty of her face 
A newer and a dearer grace, 

Unwarningof the gri 
'T was like the hue which Autumn gives 
To yonder changed and dying leaves, 

Breathed over by her frosty breath ; 
Scarce can the gazer feel that this 
Is but the spoiler's treacherous lass, 

The mocking-smile of Heath ! 

" Sweet were the tales she used to tell 
When summer's eve was dear to us, 
And, lading from the darkening dell, 
The -lory of the sunset fell 

On wooded Agamenticus, — 
When, sitting h\ our cottage wall, 
The murmur of the Saco's tall, 

And the south-wind's expiring sighs. 
Came, softly blending, on m 
With thelow tones L loved to hear : 

Tales of the pure, — the good, — the wise, 
The holy men and maids of old, 
In the all-sacred pages told ; — 
Of Rachel, stooped tit Haran's fountains, 

Amid her lather's thirsty tlock, 
Beautiful to her kinsman seeming 
As the bright angels of his dreaming, 

On Padan-aran's holy rock ; 
Of gentle Ruth, — and her who kept 

Her awful vigil on the mountains, 
By Israel's virgin daughters wept ; 
Of Miriam, with her maidens, singing 

The songfor grateful Israel meet. 
While every crimson wave was bringing 

The spoils of Egypt at her feet ; 

Of her, Samaria's bumble daughter. 

Who paused to hear, Inside her well, 

Lessons of love and truth, which fell 
Softly asShiloh's flowing water: 

And saw, beneath his pilgrim guise, 
The Promised One, so Ion- foretold 
By holy seer and bard of old, 

Revealed before her wondering eyes! 

" Slowly she faded. Day by day 
Her step grew weaker in our hall, 
And fainter, at each even-fall, 

I l.r sad \ nice died away. 
Yet on her thin, pale lip, the while, 



MOGG MEGOXE 



17 



Sat Resignation's holy smile : 
And even my father checked his tread, 
And hushed his voice, beside her bed: 
Beneath the calm and sad rebuke 
( >f her meek eye's imploring look, 
The scowl of hate his brow forsook, 

And in his stern and gloomy eye, 
At times, a few unwonted tears 
Wet the dark lashes, which for years 

Hatred and pride had kept so dry. 

" Calm as a child lu slumb r soothed, 
As if an ang< l's hand had smoothed 

The still, white features into rest, 
Silent and cold, without a breath 

To stir the drapery on her breast, 
Pain, with its keen and poisoned fang, 
The horror of the mortal pang, 
The suffering look her brow had worn, 
The fear, the strife, the anguish gone, — 

She slept at last in deatli ! 

" O, tell me, father, can the dead 
Walk on earth, and look on us, 

And lay upon the living's head 
Their blessing or their curse ? 

For, O, last nig at she stoo 1 by me, 

As I lay beneath the woo. Hand tree !" 

The Jesuit crosses himself in awe, — 

" Jesu ! what was it my daughter saw ? " 

" She came to me last night. 

The dried leaves did not feel her tread; 
She stood by me in the wan moonlight, 

In the white robes of the dead ! 
Pale, and very mournfully 
She bent her light form over me. 
I heard no sound, I felt no breath 
Breathe o'er me from that face of death : 
Its blue eyes rested on my own, 
Rayless and cold as eyes of stone ; 
Yet, in their fixed, unchanging gaze, 
Something, which spoke of early days, — 
A sadness in their quiet glare, 
As if love's smile were frozen there, — 
Came o'er me with an icy thrill ; 
O God ! I feel its presence still ! " 

The Jesuit makes, the holy sign, — 

" How passed the vision, daughter mine ? " 

" All dimly in the wan moonshine, 

As a wreath of mist will twist and twine, 

And scatter, and melt into the light, — 

So scattering, — melting on my sight, 

The pale, cold vision passed ; 
But those sad eyes were fixed on mine 

Mournfully to the last." 

"God help thee, daughter, tell me why 
That spirit passed before thine eye ! " 

" Father, I know not, save it be 
That deeds of mine have summoned her 
From the unbreathing*sepulchre, 
To leave her last rebuke with me. 
All, woe for me ! my mother died 
Just at the moment when I stood 
Close on the verge of womanhood, 
A chill in everything beside ; 
And when my wild heart needed most 
Her gentle counsels, they were lost. 

" My father lived a stormy life, 
Of frequent change and daily strife ; 
And — Cod forgive him ! — left his child 
To feel, like him, a freedom wild ; 
To love the red man's dwelling-place, 
The birch boat on his shaded floods, 
The wild excitement of the chase 

2 



Sweeping the ancient woods, 
The camp-tire, blazing on the shore 

Of the still lakes, | he clear stream where 

The idle fisher sets his wi ar, 
Or angles in the shade. Ear more 

Than that restraining awe I felt 

i I ll my gentle Illol : 

When nightly at ner knee I knelt, 
With childhood's simple prayer. 

"There came a change. The wild, glad mood 

Qf unchecked freedom passed. 
Amid the ancient solitude 
Of unshorn grass and waving wood, 

And watei I night and fast, 

A softened voice was in my ear, 

Sweet as those lulling sounds and fine 
The hunter lifts his head to hear, 
Now far and faint, now full and near — 

The murmur of the wind-swept pine. 
A manly form was ever nigh, 
A bold, fie- hunter, with an eye 

Whose dark, keen glance had power to wake, 
Both fear and love, — to awe and charm ; 

'Twas as the wizard rattlesnake. 
Whose evil glances lure to harm — 
Whose cold and small and glittering eye, 
And brilliant coil, and changing dye, 
Draw, step by step, the gazer near, 
With drooping wing and cry of fear, 
Yet powerless all to turn away, 
A conscious, but a willing prey ! 

"Fear, doubt, thought, life itself, ere long 
Merged in one feeling deep and strong. 
Faded the world which I had known, 

A poor vain shadow, cold and waste ; 
In the warm pleasant bliss alone 

Seemed I of actual life to taste. 
Fond longings dimly understood, 
The glow of passion's quickening blood, 
And cherished fantasies which press 
The young lip with a dream's caress, — 
The heart's forecast and prophecy 
Took form and life before my eye, 
Seen in the glance which met my own, 
Heard in the soft and pleading tone, 
Felt in the arms around me cast. 
And warm heart-pulses beating fast. 
Ah ! scarcely yet to God above 
With deeper trust, with stronger love, 
Has prayerful saint his meek heart lent, 
Or cloistered nun at twilight bent, 
Than I, before a human shrine, 
As mortal and as frail as mine, 
With heart, and soul, and mind, and form, 
Knelt madly to a fellow-worm. 

" Full soon, upon that dream of sin, 
An awful light came bursting in. 
The shrine was cold at which I knelt, 

The idol of that shrine was gone ; 
A humbled thing of shame and guilt, 

Outcast, and spurned and lone, 
Wrapt in the shadows of my crime, 

With withering heart and burning brain, 

And tears that fell like fiery rain, 
I passed a fearful time. 

' ' There came a voice — it checked the tear- 
In heart and soul it wrought a change ; — 

My father's voice was in my ear ; 
It whispered of revenge ! 

A new and fiercer feeling swept 
All lingering tenderness away ; 

And tiger passions, which had slept 
In childhood's better- day, 

Unknown, unfelt, arose at length 

In all their own demoniac strength. 






ra 



MOGG MEGONE. 



" A youthful warrior of the wild, 
By words deceived, )>\ smiles beguiled, 
Of crime tin- cheated instrument, 
..iii- fatal errands went. 

Through camp and town ami wilderness 
eked liis victim ; and, at last, 
Jusl when tlf lid.' "I' bate had passed. 
And milder thoughts came warm ami fast, 
Exhulting, at mj ■ 

The bloody token of success. 

"O God ! with what an awful power 

I saw ill'' buried past uprise, 
\ n. I g .' Ii. i. in a, single hour, 

It , ghosl like memories ! 
And t ben I I'll alas ! too late — 
Then underneath the mask of hate, 
That shame and guilt and wrong had thrown 

O'er feelings which t bej might not own, 

The hrart's wild love had known no ehange ; 
Ami still that deep and bidden tove, 
With its first Fondness, wept above 

The victim of its own rev enge ! 
There lav the fearful scalp, and there 
Tin- blood was mi its pale brown hair ! 
lit nut id' the \ letini's scorn, 

i thought not of his baleful guile, 
My deadly wrong, my nut. cast name, 
The charactei s of sin and shame 
On heart and forehead drawn ; 

I only saw that victim's smile, — 
The still, green places where we met, — 
Th - moonlit branches, dewy wet ; 

1 only felt, I only heard 

The greeting and the parting word, — 

The smile, — the embrace, — the tone, which made 

An Eden of the forest shade. 

'• And oh, with what a loathing eye, 

With what a deadly hate and deep, 
I saw that Indian murderer lie 

Before me, in his drunken sleep! 
What though for in i the d sed was clone, 
And words of mine had sped him on ! 
Yet when be murmured, as he slept, 

The horrors of that, deed of blood, 
Th.- bid i madness swept 

O'er brain and bosom, like a flood. 
And, father, with this hand of mine — " 

" Ha. ! what didst thou ? " the Jesuit cries, 
Shuddering, as smitten with sudden pain, 

And shading, with one thin hand, his eyes, 
With the other he makes the holy sign. 
" — I smote him as 1 would a worm ; — 
With heart as steeled, with nerves as firm: 

I I never woke again ! " 

" Woman of sin and blood and shame, 
Speak, — 1 would know that victim's name." 

"Father," she gasped, "a chieftain, known 
As Sac's Sachem, — Mogq Megone! " 

Pale priest.! What proud and lofty dreams, 
What keen desires, what cherished schemes, 
W eat hopes, t bat time may not. recall 
■ mi's fall ! 
Was he not pledged, by cross and vow, 

To lift t b ire, 

And, round his own, the ( 'hurch's foe, 

To light the avenging fire ? 
Who now tin- Tarrantine shall wake. 
For thine and for the Church's sake ? 

Who summon to the scene 
Of conquest and unsparing strife, 

The ii 
Three b Jesuit takes, — 

ig thin frame as ague shakes ; 
And loathing hate is in his 



As from his lips these words of fear 
Fall hoarsely on the maiden's ear, — 

" The soul that sinneth shall surely die ! " 

She stands, as stands the stricken deer, 
Checked midway in the fearful chase, 

When bursts, upon his eye and car, 

The gaunt., gray robber, haying near, 
Between him ami his hiding-place; 

While still behind, with yell and blow, 

Sweeps, like a storm, the coming foe. 

"Save me, <> holy man ! "—her cry 
Fills all the void, as if a tongue, 
Unseen, from rib and rafter hung, 

Thrilling with mortal agony ; 

Her bands are clasping the Jesuit's knee, 
Ami ber eye looks fearfully into his own; — 

"Off, woman of sin ! — nay, touch not me 
With those fingers of blood ; — begone ! " 

With a gesture of horror, he spurns the form 

That writhes at his feet like a trodden worm. 

Ever thus the spirit must. 

Guilty in the sight of Heaven, 

With a keener woe be riven, 
For its weak and sinful trust 
In the strength of human dust ; 

And its anguish thrill afresh, 
For each vain reliance given 

To the failing arm of fiesh. 



FART III. 

An, weary Priest ! — with pale hands pressed 

On thy throbbing brow of pain, 
BaiHed in thy life-long quest, 

Overworn with toiling vain, 
How ill thy troubled musings fit 

The holy quiet of a breast 

With the Dove of Peace at rest, 
Sweetly brooding over it. 
Thoughts are thine which have no part 
With the meek and pure of heart, 
Undisturbed by outward things, 
Resting in the heavenly shade, 
By the overspreading wings 

Of the Blessed Spirit made. 
Thoughts of strife and hate and wrong 
Sweep thy heated brain along, 
Fading hopes for whose success 

It were sin to breathe a prayer ; — 
Schemes which Heaven may never bless, — 

Fears which darken to despair. 
Hoary priest ! thy dream is done 
Of a hundred re 1 tribes won 

To the pale of Holy Church ; 
And the heretic o'erthrown, 
And his name no longer known, 
And thy weary brethren turning, 
Joy fid from their years of mourning, 
"Twist the altar and tic porch. 
Hark! what sudden sound is heard 

In the wood and in the I 
Shriller than the scream of bird, — 

Than the trumpet's clang more high ! 
Every wolf-cave of the hills, — 

Forest arch and mountain gorge, 

Rock and dell, and river verge, — 
With an answering echo thrills. 
Well docs tin' Jesuit know that cry, 
Which summons the Nbrridgewock bo die, 
And tells that the foe of his hock is nigh. 
He listens, and hears the rangers conic, 
With loud hurrah, and jar of drum, 
And hurrying feet (for the chase is hot), 
And the short, sharp sound of rifle shot, 
And taunt and menace, — answered well 
By the Indians' mocking cry and yell, — 
The bark of dogs, — the squaw's mad scream, — 



MOGG MEGONE. 



IP 



The dash of paddles along the stream, — 
The whistle of shot as it cuts the leaves 
Of the maples around the church's eaves, — 
And the gride of hatchets fiercely thrown, 
On wigwam-log and tree and stone. 
Black with the grime of paint and dust, 

Spotted and streaked with human gore, 
A grim and naked head is thrust 

Within the chapel-door. 
" Ha — Bomazeen ! — In God's name say, 
What mean these sounds of bloody fray '? " 
Silent, the Indian points his hand 

To where across the echoing glen 
Sweep Harmon's dreaded ranger band, 

And Moulton with his men. 
"Where are thy warriors, Bomazeen ? 
Where are De Rouville le and Castine, 
And where the braves of Sawga's queen ? " 
"Let my father rind the winter snow 
Which the sun drank up long moons ago ! 
Under the falls of Tacconock, 
The wolves ar ■ eating the Xorridgewock ; 
Castine with his wives lies closely hid 
Like a fox in the woods of Pemaquid ! 
On Sawga's banks the man of war 
Sits in his wigwam like a squaw, — 
Squando has tied, and Mogg Megone, 
Struck by the knife of Sagamore John, 
Lies stiff and stark and cold as a stone." 

Fearfully over the Jesuit's face, 

Of a thousand thoughts, trace after trace, 

Like swift cloud-shadows, each other chase. 

One instant, his ii. p his knife, 

For a last vain struggle for cherished life, — 

The next, he hurls the blade away. 

And kneels at his altar's foot to pray ; 

Over his beads his fingers stray. 

Ami he kisM.^ fchi cross, and calls aloud 

On the Virgin and her Son ; 

For terrible thoughts his memory crowd 

Of evil seen and done, — 
Of scalps brought home by his savage flock 
From Casco and Sawga and Sagadahock 

In the Church's service won. 

No shrift the gloomy savage brooks, 

As scowling on the priest he looks : 

" Cowesass— cowesass — tawhich wessaseen ? 19 

Let my father look upon Bomazeen, — 

My father's heart is the heart of a squaw, 

But mine is so hard that it does nut thaw ; 

Let my father ask his Cod to make 

A dance and a feast for a great sagamore, 
When he paddles across the western lake, 

With his dogs and his squaws to the spirit's 
shore. 
Cowesass — cowesass — tawhich wessaseen ? 
Let my father die like Bomazeen ! " 

Through the chapel's narrow doors, 

And through each window in tin- walls, 
Round the priest and warrior pours 

The deadly shower of English balls. 
Low on his cross the Jesuit falls ; 
While at his side the Norridgewock, 
With failing breath, essays to mock 
And menace yet the hated foe, — 
Shakes his scalp-trophies to and fro 

Exultmgly before their eyes, — 
Till, cleft and torn by shot and blow, 

Defiant still, he dies. 

" So fare all eaters of the frog ! 
Death to the Babylonish dog ! 

Down with the beast of Rome !" 
With shouts like these, aronnd the dead, 
Unconscious on his bloody bed, 

The rangers crowding come. 



Brave men ! the dead priest cannot hear 
The unfeeling taunt, — the brutal jeer; — 
Spurn — for he sees ye not— in wrath, 
The symbol of your Saviour's death ; 

Tear from his death-grasp, in your zeal, 
Ami trample, as a thing accursed, 
The cross he cherished in the dust : 

The dead man cannot feel ! 

Brutal alike in deed and word, 

With callous heart and hand of strife, 
How like a fiend may man be made, 
Plying the foul and monstrous trade 

Whose harvest-field is human life, 
j Whose sickle is the reeking sword ! 
Quenching, with reckless hand in blood, 
Sparks kindled by the breath of God ; 
| Urging the deathless soul, unshriven. 

Of open guilt or secret sin. 
Before the bar of that pure Heaven 

The holy only enter in ! 
O, by the widow's sore distress. 
The orphan's wailing wretchedness, 
By Virtue struggling in the accursed 
Embraces of polluting Lust, 
By the fell discord of the Pit, 
And the pained souls that people it, 
And by the blessed peace which fills 

The Paradise of God forever, 
Resting on all its holy hills, 

And flowing with its crystal river, — 
Let Christian hands no longer bear 

In triumph on his crimson car 

The foul and idol god of war ; 
No more the purple wreaths prepare 
To bind amid his snaky hair ; 
Nor Christian bards his glories tell, 
Nor Christian tongues his praises swell. 

Through the gun-smoke wreathing white, 

Glimpses on the soldiers' sight 

A thing of human shape I ween, 

For a moment only seen, 

With its loose hair backward streaming. 

And its eyeballs madly gleaming, 

Shrieking, like a soul in pain, 

From the world of light and breath, 
Hurrying to its place again, 

Spectre-like it vanisheth ! 

Wretched girl ! one eye alone 
Notes the way which thou hast gone. 
That great Bye, which slumbers never, 
Watching o'er a lost world ever, 
Tracks thee over vale and mountain, 
By the gushing forest-fountain, 
Plucking from the vine its fruit. 
Searching for the ground-nut's root, 
Peering in the she-wolf's den, 
Wading through the' marshy fen, 
Where the sluggish water-snake 
Basks beside the'sunny brake, 
Coiling in his slimy bed, 
Smooth and cold against thy tread, — 
Purposeless, thy mazy way 
Threading through the lingering day. 
And at night securely sleeping 
Where the dogwood's dews are weeping ! 
Still, though earth and man discard thee, 
Doth thy Heavenly Father guard thee : 
He who spired the guilty Cain, 

Even when a brother's blood, 

Crying in the ear of God, 
Cave the earth its primal stain, — 
He whose mercy ever liveth, 
Who repenting guilt forgiveth, 
And the broken heart receiveth, — 
Wanderer of the wilderness, 

Haunted, guilty, crazed, and wild, 






THE l'.IMDAL OF PENNACOOK. 



He regardeth thy distn 

And i -.nil h for his sinful child ! 



ills ! 
Like ton ents gush I he summer lills ; 

md drj dead Leaves 
The bladed ,. 
Piishes the mouldering • 
V^rtd glim] Lpril day. 

1 11 kindly show er and sunshine bud 
The branches of i ay wood ; 

< )u! from its sunn d and shi Iten I aooh - 
The M ive of the \ iolet looks ; 

The southwest wind is warmly Mowing, 
And o lors from the s] rass, 

Thi- pine-ti 

A re « it li it, on its errands going. 

A band is marching through tin' wood 
Where rolls tin' Kennebec his flood, — 
'I'd ■ u arriors of the wilderness, 
Painted, and in their bal t le dress ; 
Ami with tin in one whose bearded cheek, 
And white and wrinkled brow, bespeak 
\ wanderer from ol F] a ace. 

A few i , lock - "l' scattering snow 

Beneal h :> battered morion flow, 
And i r.Mu t in' ri\ ets of the vest 
Which girds in steel his ample breast, 

The slanted sunbi 
In t iir harsh outlines of his I l< 
I 'a i ion ;i ml r.ni have left their t rai e : 
Yet, save worn brow and thin gray hair, 
No signs of weary age are t her ■. 

I i i step is in in, his eye is ki on, 
Nor 3 eat - in broii and bal tie spi at, 
N.ii (•> 1. nor wounds, ooi pain have bent 

'rim lordly frame of old < lastine. 

No purpose now of strife and blood 

ii on : 
The fire of conquesl and the mood 

Of < 'hi\ alr\ have | one, 
A mournful task is his, — to lay 

Within the earth the bones of those 
Who perished in that fearful day, 
\\ hen \ i "i li lj ivo '- bi ca me the prey 

Of all unsparing foes. 

S;idl\ and still, dai I between, 

( >f coming veng ance mused ( lastine', 
Of the fa 

Who bade for him the Norridgewocks 
Dig up their buried tomahavi fcs 

for tii in defence or swi t't attack ; 
And him whose friendship formed the tic 



Which held the stem self-exile back 

Prom lapsing into Bavag 

\\ hose garb and ti i lly glance 

I Leca Med a \ ounger, happier day, 
And prompted memory's loud essay. 
To bridge t he mighi j w a te which lay 
Between hi wild home and that gray, 

Tall ehai an ol hi aative France, 

Whose chapel bell, wit! I din, 

Ushered hi ■ gayly in. 

Ami c d with ii - olenm toll 

The ma s is for b oul. 

Hark ! from the foremost of the hand 

Suddenly bursts the Indian yell ; 
Tor now on the very spot they stand 

When- the NorridgewockB fighting fell. 
No wigwam smoke is curl 

The wry earth is scorched and hare ; 

And t hey pause and listen to catch a sound 

( )f breathing life, — but there conies not, one, 
Save t he fox's hark and the rabbit's bound : 
But here and there, mi the blackened ground, 

While bones are glistening in the sun. 
And where the house of praj i r arose, 
Ami the holy hymn, at daylight's close, 
And the aged pries! stood up to bless 

The children Of the wilderness. 

There is aaughl save ashes sodden and dank ; 
And the birchen boats of the Norridgewook, 
Tethered to tree and si in ii 1 1 and rock, 

Rotting along the river bank ! 

Blessed Mary ! w ho is she 

ig against l hat maple-1 ■ 
The sun upon her lace burns hot, 
But the fixed eyelid moveth not; 
The squirrel's chirp is shrill and clear 

Prom the dry bough above her ear ; 

I • en t'] "in rock and root its spray, 
i Hose a i far i. , i t he rh er t*u hes; 
The blackbird's wing again si her brushes, 
And sweetly through the hazel hushes 
The robin's mellow music gushes; — 

God save her ! w ill she sleep awaj ! 

Castine hath bent him over the sleeper : 

" Wake, daughter, — wake ! " — but she si irs no 

limb : 
The e- ,' t hat looks on him is fixed and dim ; 

And the sleep she is sleeping shall be ho dei pi r, 
l T ntil the angel's oath is said, 

And r asi of the trump goes forth 

To the graves of the sea and the graves of earth. 

lit 111 BONYTHOM IS DEAD! 



THE BBIDAL OF PEKJSTAOOOK. 

1848. 



We had been wandering for many days 

Through t he rough nod hern country. 
We had seen 
a -ei, with its bars of purple cloud, 

I, shine upward from the lake 
Of \\ ; and had i 

, midsl the lea E] isles 
Which stoop their slimmer beauty to the lips 
< >f tin : i i. We bad checked our steeds. 

ith wonder, where the mountain wall 

■ oarrow i if! 
' t h hose rugged feet 
Beal s i h, i with perpel ual mar, 

Winn ■ and the u md 



( omi b bin dene,! with 1 I ing moan 

waterfalls, 
We had looked upward where the summer sky, 
Tasselled with clouds lighl woven by the sun, 
Sprung its blue arch above the abutting crags 
O'ei roofing the \ a t portal of the land 
Beyond the wall of mountains. We had passed 

The high source of the SaCO ; and hew 1 I 

[n the :-belts of 1 he I !rj stal I lills, 

Had heard above us. like a voice in the cloud, 

'i sounding ; and atop 
Of old A j mo, -hook had seei i the mountain! 
Piled to the aorthward, shagged with wood, am 
thick 



THE BRIDAL OF PEXXACOOK. 



21 



As meadow mole-hills, — the far sea of ( ' 

A w - 1 1 1 1 e gleam on the horiz 

Fair lakes, embosomed in the woods and hills ; 

Moosehillock's mountain 

Lifting his Titan forehead to the sun ! 

And we had rested underneath the oaks 
Shadowing the bank, v -v spires are 

shaken 

rpetual beating of the falls 
()t the wild Ammonoosuc. We hail tracked 
The winding Pemigewasset, overhung 
I • hen shadows, whitening down its rocks, 

Or lazily gliding through its inten 
From waving rye-fields - ading up the gleam 
Of sunlit waters. We had seen the moon 
Rising behind CJmbagog's eastern pi 
Like- a great Indian camp-fire ; and its beams 
At midnight spanning with a bridge of silver 
The Merrimack by Uncanoonuc's falls. 

There were five souls of us whom travel's chance 
Had thrown together in these wild north hills : — 
A city la aping 

Fr mi his dull office, where tie 

ily lot brick walls and close thronged 

streets, — 
Briefly but with an eye to see 

Life's sonnies d with a heart to take 

Its chances all as godsends ; and his -brother, 
Pale from long pulpit studies, yet retaining 
The warmth and freshn nial heart, 

Whose mirror of the beautiful and true, 
In Man and Nature was as yet uu dimmed 
By dust of theologic strife, or breath 
iii ict, or cobwebs of scholastic lore : 
Like a clear crystal calm of water, taking 
The hue- and image of o'erlean 
Sweet human faces, white clouds of the noon, 
Slant starlight glimpses t dewy leaves, 

And tenderest moonrise. 'T was, in truth, a 

study. 
To mark his spirit, alternating bet . 
A decent and prof 

And an irreverent mirthfulness, which often 
Laughed in the face of his divinity. 
Plucked oil' the sacred ephod, quite unshrined 

iracle, and for the pattern pri< 
Left us the man. A shrewd, sagacious merchant, 
To whom the soiled sheet found in Crawford's 

inn. 
Giving the latest news of city stocks 
And sales of cotton, had a deeper meaning 
Than the great presence of the awful mountains 
Glorified by the sunset; and his daughter 
A delicate- flower on whom had blown too long 

vil winds, which, sweeping from t h Li e 
And winnowing the fogs of Labrador, 
Shed their cold blight round Massachusetts Bay, 
With ill ath which stirs Spring 1 

ing le: 
And lifts her half-formed flower-hell on its stem, j 
Poisoning our seaside atmosphere. 

It chanced 

That as we turned upon our homeward way, 

A drear northeastern storm came howlinj 

The vallej -: and that girl 

Who had stood with us upon Mount Washington, - 

Her brown locks ruffled by the wind widen whirled 

In gusts around its sharp cold pinn 

Who had joined our gay trout-fishing in the 

streams 
Which lave that giant's feet ; whose laugh was 

heard 
Like a bird's carol on the sunrise breeze 
Which swelled our sail amidst the lake's green! 

.nds, 

Shrank from its harsh, chill breath, and visibly 
drooped 



Like a flower in the frost. So, in that quiet inn 
Which looks from Conway on the mountains 

piled 
Heavily against the horizon of the north, 
Like summer thunder-clouds, v i home : 

And while the mist hung over dripping hills. 
And the cold wind-driven rain-drops all da} long 
Beat their sad music upon roof and pane, 
We strove to cheer our gentle invalid. 

The lawyer in the pauses of the storm 

Went angling down the Saco, and, returning, 

Recounted his adventures and mishaps ; 

Grave us the history of his scaly clients, 

Mingling with ludicrous yet a] it citations 

Of barbarous law Latin. 

Fiom Izaak Walton's Angler, sweet and fresh 

As the flower-skirted streams of Staffordshire, 

Where, under aged trees, the southwest wind 

Of soft June mornings fanned the thin, white 

hair 
Of the sage fisher. And, if truth be told, 
Our youthful candidate forsook his sermons, 
His commentaries, articles and creeds, 
For the fair page of human loveliness. — 
The missal of young hearts, whose sacred text 
Is music, its illumining sweet smiles. 
He sang the songs she loved ; and in his low, 
Deep, earnest voice, recited many a page 

try. — the holiest, tenderest lines 
Of the sad bard of Olney, — the sweet songs, 
Simple and beautiful ad Truth and Nature, 
Of him whose whitened locks on Rydal Mount 
Are lifted yet by morning breezes blowing 
From the green hills, immortal in his lays. 
And for myself, obe lien! to her v. 
I searched our landlord's proffered library, — 
A well-thumbetl Bunyan, with its nice wood pic- 
tures 
Of scaly fiends and angels not unlikethem, — 
Watts' unmelodious psalms, — Astrology's 
Lit home, a musty pile of altnana 
And an old chronicle of border wars 
And Indian history. And. as I read 
A story of the marriage of the Chief 
Of Saugus to the dusky Weetamoo, 
Daughter of Passaconaway, who dwelt 
In the old time upon the Merrimack, 
Our fair one, in the playful exercise 
of her prerogative,— the right tliviue 
Of youth and beauty.- rsify 

The legend, and with ready pencil sketched 
Its plans and outlines, laughingly assigning 
To each his part, and barring our excuses, 
With absolute will. So, like the cavaliers 
Whose voices still are heard in the Romance 
Of silver-tongued Boccaccio, on the banks 
Of Arno, with soft tales of love beguiling 
The ear of languid beauty, plague - 
From stately Florence, v. I our rhymes 

To their fair auditor, and shared by turns 
Her kind approval and her playful censure. 

It may be that these fragments owe alone 
To the fair setting of their circumstances, — 
The associations of time, scene, and audience, — 
Their place amid the pictures which fill up 
The chambers of my memory. Yet I trust 
That some, who sigh, while wandering in thought,. 
Pilgrims of Romance o'er the olden world, 
That our broad land, — our sea-like lakes and 

mountains 
Piled to the clouds, — our rivers overhung 
By forests which have known no other change 
For ages, than the budding and the fall 
Of leaves, — our valleys lovelier than those 
Which the old poets sang of, — should but figure 
On the apocryphal chart of speculation 
As pastures, wood-lots, mill-sites, with the privi- 
leges, 



22 



THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK. 



Bights, and appurtenances, -which make up 
A Yankee Pa aown, 

niil'iil t radii ion; evi p their names, 
Whosi 

Vibration of the red man's requiem, 
Exchanged & Scant 

or ootton-mill and rail car, will look kindly 
Upon i his efForl to '■.ill up i he ghost 
Ot "in- dim Pas1 , ami listen with pleased oar 
'I'd the responses of tin 1 questioned Shade. 

I. Tin: MEBRIM \< K. 

o ( mi. i) of that white-crested mountain whose 

springs 
(lush forth in the shade of the cliff-eagle's wings, 
Down whose slopes to the lowlands thy wild 

waters shine, 
Leaping gray walls of rock, flashing through 
dwarf pine. 

From that cloud-curtained cradle so cold and so 

lone, 
From the arms of that wintry -locked mother of 

stone, 
By hills hung with forests, through vales wide 

; 1 1 1 ( 1 free, 
Thy mountain-born brightness glanced down to 

the sea ! 

No I nidge arched thy waters save that where the 

! I res 

Stretched their long arms above thee and kissed 

in the breeze : 
No sound save the lapse of the waves on thy 

ires, 
Th ■ plunging of otters, the light dip of oars. 

Gre n tufted, oak-shaded, by Amoskeag's fall 
Thy twin (Jncanoonucs rose Btatelyand tall, 
Thy .Nashua meadows lay green and unshorn, 
An 1 i he hills of Pentuckct were tasselled with 



But thy Fennacook valley was fairer than these, 
Ami greener its grasses and taller its trees, 
Ere tin 1 sound of an axe in the forest had rung, 
Or the mower his scythe in the meadows had 
swung. 

In their sheltered repose looking out from the 

WIN I. I 

The bark-builded wigwams of Pe"nnacook stood, 
There glided the corn-dance, the council-tire 

one, 

And against the red war-post the hatchet was 

i lnown. 

There the old smoked in silence their pipes, and 

t he J OUUg 

To the pike and the white-perch their baited 
lines flung ; 

There the boy shaped his arrows, and there the 
shy maid 

Wove her many- lined baskets and bright wam- 
pum braid. 

< > Stream of the Mountains ! if answer of thine 
Could rise from th - question of mine, 

... - through i in- dm of thy thronged banks 

a moan 
Of sorrow would swell for the days which have 

gone. 

Not for thee the dull jar of the loom and the 

wheel, 
The gliding of shii inging of steel ; 

But that old voice of waters, of bird and of 

breeze, 
'l'h, dip of the wild-fowl, the rustling of trees ! 



ii. Tin: BASH vr. \.-' 

Lift wo the twilight curtains of the Past, 
And, turning from familiar sight and sound, 

Sadly and full of revere let us east 

\ glance upon Tradition's shadowy ground, 
Led by the \\-w pale Lights which, glimmering 
round 
That dim, strange land of Eld, seem dying fast ; 
And that which history gives not- to the eye, 
The faded coloring of Time's tapestry, 
Let Fancy, with her dream-dipped brush, supply. 

Roof of bark and walls of pine, 

Through whose chinks the sunbeams shine, 

Tracing many a golden line 

On the ample floor within; 
Where, upon that earl h floor stark, 
Lay the gaudy mats of bark, 
With the bear's hide, rough and dark, 

And the red-deer's skin. 

Window-tracery, small and slight, 
Woven of the willow white, 
Lent a dimly checkered light, 

And the night-stars glimmered down, 
Where the lodge-fire's heavy smoke, 
Slowly through an opening broke, 
In the low roof, ribbed with oak. 

Sheathed with hemlock brown. 

Gloomed behind the changeless shade, 
By the solemn pine-wood made; 
Through the rugged palisade, 

In the open foreground planted, 
Glimpses came of rowers rowing, 
Stir of leaves and wild-flowers blowing, 
Steel-like gleams of water flowing, 

In the sunlight slanted. 

Here the mighty Bashaba 

Held his long-unquestioned sway. 

From the White Hills, far awaj , 

To the great sea's sounding shore ; 
Chief of chiefs, his regal word 
All the river Sachems heard, 
At his call the war-dance stirred, 

Or was still once more. 

There his spoils of chase and war, 
Jaw of wolf and black bear's paw, 
Panther's skin and eagle's claw-, 

Lay beside his axe and bow; 
And, adown the roof-pole hung, 
Loosely on a .snake-skin .strung, 
In the smoke his scalp-locks swung 

Grimly to and fro. 

Nightly down the river going, 
Swifter was the hunter's rowing, 
When he saw that lodge-fire glowing 

O'er the waters still and red; 
And the squaw's dark eye burned brighter, 
And she drew her blanket tighter, 
As, with quicker step ami lighter, 

From that door she fled. 

For that chief had magic skill, 
And a Panisee's dark will, 
Over powers of good and ill, 

Powers which bless and powers which ban, — 
Wizard lord of Peiinacook, 
Chiefs upon their war-path shook, 
When they met the steady look 

Of that wise dark man. 

Talcs of him the gray squaw told, 
When the winter night-wind cold 
Pierced her blanket's thickest told. 



THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK. 



23 



And her tire burned low and small, 
Till the very child abed, 
Drew its bear-skin ovi c head, 

.Shrinking from the pale lights shed 
On the trembling wall. 

All the subtle spirits hiding 
Under earth or wave, abiding 
In the caverned rock, or riding 

Misty clouds or morning breeze ; 
Everj dark intelligence, 
Secret soul' and influence 
Of all things which outward sense 

Feels, or hears, or sees, 

These the wizard's skill confessed, 
At his bidding banued or blessed, 
Stormful woke or lulled to rest 

Wind and cloud, and fire and flood ; 
Burned for him the drifted snow, 
Bade through ice fresh lilies blow, 
And the leaves of summer grow 

Over winter's wood ! 

Not untrue that tale of old ! 
Now, as then, the wise and bold 
All the powers of Nature hold 

Subject to their kingly will ; 
From the wondering crowds ashore, 
Treading life's wild waters o'er, 
As upon a marble floor, 

Moves the strong man still. 

Still, to such, life's elements 
With their sterner laws dispense, 
And the chain of consequence 

Broken in their pathway lies ; 
Time and change their vassals making 
Flowers from icy pillows waking, 
Tresses of the sunrise shaking 

Over midnight skies. 

Still, to earnest souls, the sun 
Rests on towered Gibeon, 
And the moon of Ajalon* 

Lights the battle-grounds of life ; 
To his aid the strong reverses 
Hidden powers and giant forces, 
And the high stars, in their courses, 

Mingle in his strife ! 



III. THE DAUGHTER. 

The soot-black brows of men, — the yell 
Of women thronging round the bed, — 
The tinkling charm of ring and shell, — 

The Powah whispering o'er the dead ! — 
All these the Sachem's home had known, 

When, on her journey long and wild 
To the dim World of Souls, alone. 
In her young beauty passed the mother of his 
child. 

Three bow-shots from the Sachem's dwelling 

They laid h/-r in the walnut shade, 
Where a gresn hillock gently swelling 

Her fitting mound of burial made. 
There trailed the vine in summer hours, 

The tree-perched squirrel dropped his shell, — 
On velvet moss and pale-lmed flowers, 
Woven with leaf and spray, the softened sunshine 
fell! 

The Indian's heart is hard and cold, — 

It closes darkly o'er its care, 
And formed in Nature's sternest mould, 

Is slow to feel, and strong to bear. 
The war-paint on the Sachem's face, 

Unwet with tears, shone fierce and red, 



And, still in battle or in chase, 
Dry leaf and snow-rime crisped beneath His fore- 
most tread. 

Yet when her name was heard no more, 
And when the robe her mother gave, 

And small, light moccasin she wore, 
Had slowly wasted on her grave, 

Unmarked of him the dark maids sped 
Their sunset dance and moonlit play ; 

No other shared his lonelj b sd, 
No other fair young head upon his bosom lay. 

A lone, stern man. Yet, as sometimes 

The tempest-smitten tree receives 
From one small root the sap which climbs 
Its topmost spray and crowning leaves, 
So from his child the Sachem drew 

A life of Love and Hope, and felt 
His cold and rugged nature through 
The softness and tne warmth of her young being 
melt. 

A laugh which in the woodland rang 
Bemocking April's gladdest bird, — 
A light and graceful form which sprang 

To meet him when his step was heard, — 
Eyes by his lodge-fire flashing dark, 

Small fingers stringing bead and shell 
Or weaving mats of bright-hued bark, — 
With these the household-god -'-' had graced his 
wigwam well. 

Child of the forest ! — strong and free, 

Slight-robed, with loosely flowing hair, 
She swam the lake or climbed the tree, 

Or struck the flying bird in air. 
O'er the heaped drifts of winter's moon 

Her snow-shoes tracked the hunter's way ; 
And dazzling in the summer noon 
The blade of her light oar threw off its shower of 
spray ! 

Unknown to her the rigid rule, 

The dull restraint, the chiding frown, 
The weary torture of the school, 

The taming of wild nature down. 
Her only lore, the legends told 

Around the hunter's fire at night ; 
Stars rose and set, and seasons rolled, 
Flowers bloomed and snow-flakes fell, unques- 
tioned in her sight. 

Unknown to her the subtle skill 
With which the artist-eye can trace 

In rock and tree and lake and hill 
The outlines of divinest grace ; 

Unknown the fine soul's keen unrest, 
Which sees, admires, yet yearns alway ; 

Too closely on her mother's breast 
To note her smiles of love the child of Nature lay I 

It is enough for such to be 

Of common, natural things a part, 
To feel, with bird and stream and tree, 

The pulses of the same great heart ; 
But we, from Nature long exiled 

In our cold homes of Art and Thought, 
Grieve like the stranger-tended child, 
Which seeks its mother's arms, and sees but feels 
them not. 

The garden rose may richly bloom 

In cultured soil and genial air 
To cloud the light of Fashion's room 

Or droop in Beauty's midnight hair. 
In lonelier grace, to sun and dew 

The sweetbrier on the hillside shows 
Its single leaf and fainter hue, 
Untrained and wildly free, yet still a sister rose ! 



u 



THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK. 



Tims o'er the heart of Weetamoo 
Their mingling shades of joj and ill 

The instincts of ber aature threw, — 
The Bavage was a woman still. 

Midst outlines dim of maiden schemes, 
II ,m! colored prophecii a of life, 

Rose ou the ground of ber young dreams 
The light of a new home, — the lover ami the wife. 



IV. Till' WEDDING. 

Cooi. ami dark fell the autumn night ; 
Hut the Bashaba's wigwam glowed with light, 
For down from its roof by green withes bung 
Flaring ami smoking the pine-knots swung. 

Anil aliing the river great wood fires 
Shot into the night- their long red spires, 
Showing behind the tall, dark wood, 
Flashing before on the sweeping flood. 

In the changeful wind, with shimmer and shade, 
Now high, now low, that firelight played, 
On tree-leaves wet with evening dews, 
On gliding water and still canoes. 

The trapper that night on Turee's brook, 
And the weary fisher on Contoocook, 
Saw over the marshes and through the pine, 
And down on the river the dance-lights shine. 

For the Saugus Sachem had come to woo 
The Bashaba's daughter Weetamoo, 
And laid at her father's feet that night 
His softest furs and wampum white. 

From the Crystal Hills to the far southeast 
The river Sagamores came to the feast ; 
And chiefs whose homes the sea-winds shook, 
Sat down on the mats of Penuacook. 

They came from Sunapee's shore of rock, 
Prom the snowy sources of Snooganock, 
And from rough Coos whose thick woods shake 
Their pine-cones in Umbagog Lake. 

From Ammonoosuc's mountain pass, 
Wild as his home, came Chepewass; 
And the Keenomps of the hills which throw 
Their shade on the Smile of Manito. 

With pipes of peace and bows unstrung, 
Glowing with paint came old and young, 
In wampum and furs and feat hers arrayed, 
To the dance and feast the Bashaba made. 

Bird of the air and beast of the field, 

All which the woods and waters yield, 
On dishes of birch and hemlock piled. 
Garnished and graced that banquet wild. 

nf the brown bear fat and large 
From the rocky slopes of the Kearsarge; 
Delicate trout from Babboosuck brook, 
And salmon speared in the Contoocook ; 

Squirrels which fed where nuts fell thick 
In the gravelly bed of the Otternic ; 
And small wild hens in reed snares caught 
From the banks of Sondagardee brought; 

Pike and perch from the Suncook taken, 
Nuts from the trees of the Black Hills shaken, 
Cranberries picked in tin Squamscol bog, 
And grapes from the vines of Piscataquog : 

And, drawn Erom that greal stone vase which 

Btanda 
In the river scooped by a spirit's hands, 23 



Garnished with spoons of shell and horn, 
Stood the birchen dishes of smoking corn. 

Thus bird of the air and beast of the field, 
All which the woods and the waters yield, 
Furnished in that olden day 
The bridal feast of the Bashaba. 

Ami merrily when that feast was done 
On the fire lit green the dance begun, 
With squaws' shrill stave, and deeper hum 
Of old men beating the Indian drum. 

Painted and plumed, with scalp-locks flowing, 
And red arms tossing and black eyes glowing, 
Now in the light and now in the shade 
Around the fires the dancers played. 

The step was quicker, the song more shrill, 
And the beat of the small drums louder still 
Whenever within the circle drew 
The Saugus Sachem and Weetamoo. 

The moons of forty winters had shed 
Their snow upon that chieftain's head, 
And toil and care, and battle's chance 
Had seamed his hard dark countenance. 

A fawn beside the bison grim, — 
Why turns the bride's fond eye on him, 
In whose cold look is naught beside 
The triumph of a sullen pride ? 

Ask why the graceful grape entwines 
The rough oak with her arm of vines ; 
And why the gray rock's rugged cheek 
The soft lips of the mosses seek : 

Why, with wise instinct, Nature seems 
To harmonize her wide extremes, 
Linking the stronger with the weak, 
The haughty with the soft and meek ! 



V. THE NEW HOME. 

A wild and broken landscape, spiked with firs, 
Roughening the bleak horizon's northern edge, 
Steep, cavernous hillsides, where black hemlock 
spurs 
And sharp, gray splinters of the wind-swept 
ledge 
Pierced the thin-glazed ice, or bristling rose, 
Where the cold rim of the sky sunk down upon 
the snows. 

And eastward cold, wide marshes stretched away, 
Dull, dreary flats without a bush or tree, 

O'er-crossed by icy creeks, where twice a day 
Gurgled the waters of the moon-struck sea ; 

And faint with distance came the stifled roar, 

The melancholy lapse of waves on that low shore. 

No cheerful village with its mingling smokes, 
No laugh of children wrestling in the snow, 

No camp-fire blazing through the hillside oaks, 
No fishers kneeling on the ice below ; 

Yet midst all desolate things of sound and view, 

Through the long winter moons smiled dark-eyed 
Weetamoo. 

Her heart had found a home; and freshly all 

Its beautiful affections overgrew 
Their rugged prop. As o'er some granite wall 

Suit \ i ue leaves open to the moistening dew 
And warm bright, sun, the love of that young 

W ile 

Found on a hard cold breast tho dew and warmth 
of life. 



THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK. 



25 



The steep bleak hills, the melancholy shore, 

The long dead level of the marsh between, 

A coloring of unreal beauty wore 

Through the soft golden mist of young love 

seen. 

Pot o'er those hills and from that dreary plain. 

Nightly she welcomed home her hunter chief Ave ever those at which our young lips drank, 

again. Stooped to their waters o'er the grassy hank : 



VI. AT PENNACOOK. 

THE tills are dearest which our childish feet 
Have climbed the earliest; and the streams most 

sweet' 



No warmth of heart, no passionate burst of feel- 
ing, 

Repaid her welcoming smile and parting kiss, 
No fond and playful dalliance half concealing, 

Under the guise of mirth, its tenderness ; 
But, in their stead, the warrior's settled pride, 
Ami vanity's pleased smile with homage satisfied. 

Enough for Weetamoo, that she alone 
Sat on his mat and slumbered at his side ; 

That he whose fame to her young ear had flown 
Now looked upon her ^proudly as his bride ; 

That he whose name the Mohawk trembling heard 

Vouchsafed to her at times a kindly look or 
w T ord. 

For she had learned the maxims of her race, 
Which teach the woman to become a slave 

And feel herself the pardonless disgrace 

Of love's fond weakness in the wise and brave, — 

The scandal and the shame which they incur, 

Who give to woman all which man requires of 
her. 

So passed the winter moons. The sun at last 

Broke link by link the frost chain of the rills, 
And the warm breathings of the southwest passed 

Over the hoar rime of the Saugus hills, 
The gray and desolate marsh grew green once 

more, 
And the birch-tree's tremulous shade fell round 
the Sachem's door. 

Then from far Pennacook swift runners came, 
With gift and greeting for the Saugus chief ; 

Beseeching him in the great Sachem's name, 
That, with the coming of the flower and leaf, 

The song of birds, the warm breeze and the rain, 

Young Weetamoo might greet her lonely sire 
again. 

And Winnepurkit called his chiefs together, 
And a grave council in his wigwam met, 

Solemn and brief in words, considering whether 
The rigid rules of forest etiquette 

Permitted Weetamoo once more to look 

Upon her father's face and green-banked Penna- 
cook. 

With interludes of pipe-smoke and strong water, 
The forest sages pondered, and at length, 

Concluded in a body to escort her 

Up to her father's home of pride and strength, 

Impressing thus on Pennacook a sense 

Of Winnepurkit's power and regal consequence. 

So through old woods which Aukeetamit's 24 hand, 
A soft and many-shaded greenness lent, 

Over high breezy hills, and meadow land 

Yellow with flowers, the wild procession went, 

Till, rolling down its wooded banks between, 

A broad, clear, mountain stream, the Merrimack 
was seen. 

The hunter leaning on his bow undrawn, 
The fisher lounging on the pebbled shores, 

Squaws in the clearing dropping the seed-corn, 
Young children peering through the wigwam 
doors, 

Saw with delight, surrounded by her train 

Of painted Saugus braves, their Weetamoo again. 



Midst the cold dreary sea-watch, Home's hearth- 
light 

Shines round the helmsman plunging through the 

night ; 
And still, with inward eye, the traveller sees 
In close, dark, stranger streets his native trees. 

The homesick dreamer's brow is nightly fanned 
By breezes whispering of his native land, 
Anc!"on the stranger's dim and dying eye 
The soft, sweet pictures of his childhood lie. 

Joy then for Weetamoo, to sit once more 
A child upon her father's wigwam floor ! 
Once more with her old fondness to beguile 
Prom his cold eye the strange light of a smile. 

The long bright days of summer swiftly passed, 
The dry leaves whirled in autumn's rising blast, 
And evening cloud and whitening sunrise rime, 
Told of the coming of the winter-time. 

But vainly looked, the while, young Weetamoo, 
Down the dark river for her chief's canoe ; 
No dusky messenger from Saugus brought 
The grateful tidings which the young wife sought. 

At length a runner from her father sent, 
To Winnepurkit's sea-cooled wigwam went : 
" Eagle of Saugus, — in the woods the dove 
Mourns for the shelter of thy wings of love." 

But the dark chief of Saugus turned aside 
In the grim anger of hard-hearted pride ; 
" I bore her as became a chieftain's daughter, 
Up to her home beside the gliding water. 

1 ' If now no more a mat. for her is found 
Of all which line her father's wigwam round, 
Let Pennacook call out his warrior train, 
And send her back with wampum gifts again." 

The baffled runner turned upon his track, 
Bearing the words of Winnepurkit back. 
" Dog of the Marsh," cried Pennacook, "no more 
Shall child of mine sit on his wigwam floor. 

" Go, — let him seek some meaner squaw to spread 
The stolen bear-skin of his beggar's bed : 
Son of a fish-hawk ! — let him dig his clams 
For some vile daughter of the Agawams, 

" Or coward Nipmucks !— may his scalp dry black 

In Mohawk smoke, before I send her back." 

He shook his clenched hand towards the ocean 

wave, 
While hoarse assent his listening council gave. 

Alas poor bride ! — can thy grim sire impart 
His iron hardness to thy woman's heart? 
Or cold self-torturing pride like his atone 
For love denied and life's warm beauty flown ? 

0» Autumn's gray and mournful grave the snow 
Hung its white wreaths ; with stifled voice and 
low 
j The river crept, by one vast bridge o'er-crossed, 
Built by the hoar-locked artisan of Frost. 

' And many a Moon in beauty newly born 
! Pierced tiie red sunset with her silver horn, 



26 



THE MERRIMACK. 



Or, from the easl raure field Had left her mother's grave, her father's door, 

Rolled the wide brightness of her full-orbed shield. To seek the wigwam ol her chief once more. 



5Tel Winnepurkit came not,, —mi the mat 
< m the scorned « ife her dusky rival sal ; 
And be, the while, in Western woods afar, 
Urged the long cha -•■. or I rod i be path of war. 

Drj up thy tears, young daughter of a chief! 
Waste mil on him the sacreaness of griei ; 

fierce Bpirit of tin Bire bhine own, 
1 1 is lips of scorning, and Ins heart of stone. 

What heeds the warrior of a hundred fights, 

borm-worn watcher through long hunting 
nights, 
Cold, crafty, proud of woman's weak distress, 
Her home-bound grief and pining loneliness ? 



VII. THE DEPARTURE. 

TnE wild March rains had l i,llen East and long 
The shown' mountains of the North among, 
Making each vale a wat ire mrse, — each hill 



Bright with the cascade of some new-made rill. Jfn! wonck kunna-moi 



Down the white rapids like a sear leaf whirled, 
On the sharp rocks and piled-up ices hurled, 
Empijv and broken, circled the canoe 
In the vexed pool below— but, where was Weeta- 
moo '! 



VIII. SONG OF INDIAN WOMEN. 

The Dark eye lias left us, 

The Spring bird has flown ; 
On the pal bway of spirits 
She wanders alone. 
The song of the wood-dove has died on ov.r 

shore, — 
Mat wonck kunna-monet .'-:<— We hear it no more! 

O dark water Spirit ! 

We cast on thy wave 
These' furs which may never 
Hang over her gra\ e ; 
Hear down to the lost one the robes that she 
wore, 

-We see her no more ! 



( rnawed by the sunbeams, softened by the rain, 
Heaved underneath by the swollen current's 

strain. 
The ice bridge yielded, and the Merrimack 
Bore the huge ruin crashing down its track. 

On that strong turbid water, a small boat 
Guided bj one weak hand was seen to float; 
Evil the fate which loosed it from the shore, 
Too early voyager with too frail an oar ! 

Down the vexed centre of that rushing tide, 
The thick huge ice-blocks threatening either side, 
The foam-white rocks of Amoskeag in view, 
With arrowy swiftness sped that light canoe. 

The trapper, moistening his moose's meat 

On the wet hank by (Jncanoonuc's feet, 

Saw the swift boat Hash down the troubled 

stream — 
Slept he. or wakeil he V — was it truth or dream ? 

The straining eye bent Eearfully before, 
The small hand clenching on the useless oar, 
The bead-wrought blanket trailing o'er the 

water — 
He knew them all — woe for the Sachem's daugh- 
ter ! 

Sick and aweary of her lonely life, 
Heedless of peril the still faithful wife 



Of the strange land she walks in 

No Powah has told : 
It may burn with the sunshine, 
Or freeze witli the cold. 
Lit us give to our lost one the robes that she wore. 
Mat wonck kunna-monee! — We see her no more ! 

The path she is treading 
Shall soon be our own ; 
Each gliding in shadow 
Unseen and alone ! — 
In vain shall we call on the souls gone before, — 
Mat wonck kunna-monee! — They hear us no 
more ! 

O mighty So wanna ! -'"' 

Thy gateways unfold, 
From thy wigwam of sunset 
Lift curtains of gold ! 
Take home the poor Spirit whose journey is o'er, — 
Mat wonck kunna-monee! — We see her no more! 

So sang the Children of the Leaves beside 
The broad, dark river's coldly flowing tide, 
Now low, now harsh, with sob-like pause and 

swell, 
On the high wind their voices rose and fell. 
Nat ure's wild music, — sounds of wind-swept trees, 
The scream of birds, the wailing of the breeze, 
The roar of waters, steady, deep, and strong, — 
Mingled and murmured in that farewell song. 



LEGEND AET. 



1840. 



THE MERRIMACK. 



f" The ItnVi; ir to the 

south, which they call Merrim ceub deMonts: 

1604.] 

Stream of my fathers ! Bwei tly still 
The Mins. -t im\ - i , -..■ \ alley till ; 
Poured slantwise down I he long defile, 
\\'a\e. wood, and spire be leath bhi m smile. 
he winding Powow fold 



The green hill in its belt of gold, 
And following down its wavy line, 
Its sparkling waters Mend with thine. 
There ie not a tree upon thy side. 
Nor rock-, which thy returning tide 
As yet hath left abrupt and stark 
\ bove thy e\ ening water mai k ; 
No calm cove with its rocky hem, 
No isle whose emerald swells begem 
Thy broad, smooth current; not a sail 



THE MERRIMACK.— THE NORSEMEN. 



Bowed to the freshening ocean gale ;' 

No small boat with its busy oars, 

Nor gray wall sloping to thy shores; 

Nor farm-house with its maple shade, 

Or rigid poplar colonnade, 

B<it Ins distinct and full in sight, 

Beneath this gush of sunset light. 

( Jenturies ago, that harbor-bar, 

Stret shing its length of foam afar. 

And Salisbury's beach of sffining sand, 

An! yonder island's wave-smoothed strand, 

Saw the adventurer's tiny sail, 

Flit, stooping from the eastern gale ; - 7 

And o'er these woods an I waters broke 

The cheer from Britain's hearts of o._k, 

As brightly on th • voyager's eye, 

Weary of forest, sea, ami sky, 

Breaking the dull continuous wood, 

The Merrimack rolled down his flood ; 

Mingling that el iar pellucid brook, 

Wan 1 i channels vast Agioochook 

When spring-' hue's sun and shower unlock 

The frozen fountains of the rock, 

Anl more abundant wai 

From that pure like, " The Smile of Heaven, 

Tributes from vale and mountain-side, — 

With o :e m's dark, eternal tide ! 

() i yonder rocky cape, which braves 
The stormy challenge of the waves, 
Midst tingled vine and dwarfish wood, 
The hardy Anglo-Saxon stood, 
Planting upon the topmost crag 
The statf of England's battle-flag ; 
And, while from out its heavy fold 
Saint George's crimson cross unrolled. 
Midst roll of drum and trumpet blare, 
And weapons blandishing in air, 
He gave to that lone promontory 
The sweetest name in all his story ; -'■' 
Other, the flower of Islam's daughters, 
Whose harems look on Stamboul's waters, — 
Who, when the chance of war had bound 
The Moslem chain his limbs around, 
Wreathed o'er with silk that iron chain. 
Soothed with her smiles his hours of pain, 
And fondly to her youthful slave 
A dearer gift than freedom gave. 

But look ! — the yellow light no more 

Str iams down on wave and verdant shore ; 

And clearly on the calm air swells 

The twilight voice of distant bells. 

From Ocean's bosom, white and thin, 

The mists come slowly rolling in ; 

Hills, woods, the river's rocky rim, 

Amidst the s (a-lik i vapor swim, 

While yonder lonely coast-light, set 

Within its wave-washed minaret, 

Half qui ne ie 1, a beamless star and pale, 

S nnes dimly through its cloudy veil ! 

Home of my fathers ! — I have stood 

Whore Hudson rolled his lordly flood : 

S 'en sunrise rest and sunset fade 

Along his frowning Palisade ; 

L toked down the Apalachian peak 

( )n .Juniata's silver streak ; 

Have seen along his valley gleam 

The Mohawk's softly winding stream; 

The level light of sunset shine 

Through broad Potomac's hem of pine ; 

And autumn's rainbow tinted banner 

Hang lightly o'er the Susquehanna; 

Yet wheresoe'er his step might be, 

Thy wandering child looked back to thee! 

Heard in his dreams thy river's sound 

Of murmuring on its pebbly bound, 

The unforgotten swell and roar 

Of waves on thy familiar shore ; 



And saw, amidst the curtained gloom 
And quiet of his lonely room, 
Thy sunset scenes before him pass ; 
As, in Agrippa's magic glass, 
The loved and lost arose to view, 
Remembered groves in greenness grew, 
Bathed still in childhood's morning dew, 
Along whose bowers ol beauty swept 
Whatever Memory's mourners wept, 
Sweet faces, which th ■ charnel kept, 
Young, gentle eyes, which long had slept; 
And while the gazer leaned to trace, 
Miur near, some dear familia c 
Hew ep t to tin< L tie' vision flown, — 
A phantom and a dream alone ! 



THE NORSEMEN. 30 

Gift from the cold and silent Past ! 

A relic to the present cast ; 

Left on the ever-changing strand 

Of shifting and unstable sand, 

Which wastes beneath the steady chime 

And beating of the waves of Time 1 

Who from its bed of primal rock 

First wrenched thy dark, unshapely block ? 

Whose hand, of curious skill untaught, 

Thy rude and savage outline wrought V 

The waters of my native stream 

-'ire glancing in the sun's warm beam : 

From sail-urged keel and flashing oar 

The circles widen to its shore : 

And cultured field and peopled town 

Slope to its willowed margin down. 

Yet, while this morning breeze is bringing 

The home-life sound of school-bells ringing, 

And rolling wheel, and rapid jar 

< >!: th- fire-winged and steedl sss car, 

And voices from the wayside near 

Corns quick and blended on my ear, 

A spell is in this old gray stone, — 

My thoughts are witn the Past alone ! 

A change ! — The steepled town no more 

Stretches along the sail-thronged shore : 

I j ke palace-domes m sunset's cloud, 

Fade sun-gilt spire and mansion proud: 

Spectrally rising where they stood, 

I sea the old, primeval wood : 

Dark, shadow-like, on either hand 

1 s -e its solemn waste expand : 

It climbs the green and cultured hill, 

It arches o'er the valley's rill ; 

And leans from cliff and crag, to throw 

Its wild arms o'er the stream below. 

Unchanged, aloUe, the same bright river 

Flows on, as it will flow forever ! 

I listen, and I hear the low 

Soft ripple where its waters go ; 

I hear behind the panther's cry, 

I The wild-bird's scream goes thrilling by, 
And shyly on the river's brink 

, The deer is stooping down to drink. 

But hark ! — from wood and rock flung back, 
What sound comes up the Merrimack? 
What sea-worn barks are those which throw 
The light spray from each rushing prow ? 
; Have th >y not in the North Sea's blast 
I ".owe 1 to the waves the straining mast? 
Their frozen sails the low, pale sun 
( >f Thule's n.ght has shone upon ; 
Flapped by the sea-wind's gusty swe p 
Round icy drift, and headland steep, 
Wild Jutland's wives and Lochlin's daughters 
Have watche 1 them fading o'er the waters, 
Lessening through driving mist and spray, 
Like white-winged sea-birds on tbeir way ! 



28 



THE NORSEMEN.— CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK. 




Onward they glide, — ami now I view 
Their iron-armed and stalwart crew; 
Joy glistens in each wild lilue eye, 
Turned to green earth and summer sky : 
Each broad, seamed breast has cast aside 
Its cumbering vest of shaggy hide; 
Bared to the sun and soft warm air, 
Streams back the Norsemen's yellow hair. 
I see the gleam of axe and spear, 
The sound of smitten shields I hear, 
Keeping a harsh and fitting time 
To Saga's chant, and Runic rhyme ; 
Such lays as Zetland's Scald has sung, 
His gray and naked isles among ; 
Or mattered low at midnight hour 
Round Odin's mossy stone of power. 
The wolf beneath the Arctic moon 
Has answ :red to that startling rune ; 
The Gael has heard its stormy swell, 
The light Prank knows its summons well 
[ona's Bable-s1 Isd < iuldee 
Ha.^ heard it sunn dim;- o'er the sea, 
And swept, with hoary beard and hair, 
II. s altar's t'oo,. in trembling prayer ! 

'T is past, — the 'wildering vision dies 

In darkness on my dreaming eyes ! 

The forest vanishes in air, — 

Hill-Slop ' and \ale lie starkh 

1 hear the e, , ad of lien, 

And hum of work i in : 

The mysl ic relic seems alone 

A. broken m I one ; 

And if it he the chiselled limb 

Of Bei i 'ii, — 

gmeni of Valhalla's Thor, 
The storm] Viking's -oil of War. 
Or Praga of the Runic lay, 
Or love awakening Siona, 
I know not, — for no graven line, 



Nor Druid mark, nor Runic sign, • 

Is left me here, by which to trace 

Its name, or origin, or place. 

Yet, for this vision of the Past, 

This glance upon its darkness east, 

My spirit bows in gratitude 

Before the Giver of all good, 

Who fashioned so the human mind, 

That, from the waste of Time behind 

A simple stone, or mound of earth, 

Can summon the departed forth; 

Quicken the Past to life again, — 

The Present lose in what, hath been, 

And m their primal freshness show 

'The buried forms of long ago. 

As if a portion of that Thought 

By which the Eternal will is wrought, 

Whose impulse tills anew with breath 

The frozen solitude oi Death, 

To mortal mind were sometimes lent, 

To mortal musings sometimes sent, 

To whisper — even when it- seems 

Rut Memory's fantasy of dreams — 

Through the mind's waste of woe and sin, 

Of an immortal origin ! 



CASSANDRA SOUTHW'ICK. 
1658. 

To the God of all sure mercies let my blessing 
rise to day. 

Prom the scoffer and the cruel He hath plucked 
t lie spoil away, — 

Yea, I le who cooled the furnace around the faith- 
ful three. 

And tamed the ( 'haldean lions, hath set his hand- 
maid free ! 



CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK. 



29 



Last night I saw the sunset melt through my 

prison bars, 
List night across my damp earth-floor fell the pale 

gleam of stars ; 
In the coldness and the darkness all through the 

long night-time, 
My grated casement whitened with autumn's early 

rime. 

Alone, in that dark sorrow, hour after hour crept 

by; 
Star after star looked palely in and sank adown 

the sky ; 
No sound amid Dight's stillness, save that which 

seemed to be 
The dull and heavy beating of the pulses of the 

sea ; 

All night I sat unsleeping, for I knew that on the 

morrow 
The ruler and the cruel priest would mock me in 

my sorrow, 
Dragged to their place of market, and bargained 

for and sold. 
Like a land) before the shambles, like a heifer 

from the fold ! 

O, the weakness of the flesh was there, — the 

shrinking and the shame ; 
And the low voice of the Tempter like whispers 

to me came : 
"Why sit'st thou thus forlornly!" the wicked 

murmur said, 
" Damp walls thy bower of beauty, cold earth thy 

maiden bei I ? 

* ''Where be the smiling faces, and voices soft and 
sweet, 

Seen in thy father's dwelling, heard in the pleas- 
ant street? 

Where be the youths whose glances, the summer 
Sabbath through, 

Turned tenderly and timidly unto thy father's 
pew ? 

"Why sit'st thou here, Cassandra? — Bethink 

thee with what mirth 
Thy happy schoolmates gather around the warm 

bright hearth ; 
How the crimson shadows tremble on foreheads 

white and fair, 
On eyes of merry girlhood, half hid in golden 

hair. 

"Not for thee the hearth-fire brightens, not for 
thee kind words are spoken, 

Not for thee the nuts of Wenham woods by laugh- 
ing boys arc broken, 

No first-fruits of the orchard within thy lap are 
laid, 

For thee no flowers of autumn the youthful hunt- 
ers braid. 

'• O, weak, deluded maiden! — by crazy fancies 
led, 

With wild and raving railers an evil path to 

treai I ; 
To leave a wholesome worship, and teaching pure 

and si mud ; 
And mate with maniac women, loose-haired and 

sackcloth bound. 

"Mad scoffers of the priesthood, who mock at 

things divine, 
Who rail against the pulpit, and holy bread and 

wine ; 
Sore from their cart-tail scourgings, and from the 

pillory lame. 
Rejoicing in their wretchedness, and glorying in 

their shame. I 



"And what a fate awaits thee? — a sadly toiling 
slave, 

Dragging the slowly letgthening chain of bond- 
i the grave ! 

Think of thy woman's nature, subdued in hope- 
less thrall. 

The easy prey of any, the scoff and scorn of all ! " 

O, ever as the Tempter spoke, and feeble Nature's 

Wrung drop by drop the scalding flow of unavail- 
ing tears, 

I wrestled down the evil thoughts, and strove in 
silent pra \ er, 

To feel, O Helper of the weak ! that Thou indeed 
wert there ! 

I thought of Paul and Silas, within Philippi's cell, 

And how from Peter's sleeping limbs the prison- 
shackles fell, 

Till I seemed to hear the trailing of an angel's 
robe of white, 

And to feel a blessed presence invisible to sight. 

Bless the Lord for all his mercies ! — for the peace 

and love I felt, 
Like dew of Hermon's holy hill, upon my spirit 

melt ; 
When "Get behind me, Satan ! " was the language 

of my heart, 
A nd I felt the Evil Tempter with all his doubts 

depart. 

Slow broke the gray cold morning ; again the 

sunshine fell, 
Flecked with the shade of bar and grate within 

my lonely cell ; 
The hoar-frost melted on the wall, and upward 

from the street 
Came careless laugh and idle word, and tread of 

passing feet. 

At length the heavy bolts fell back, my door was 

open cast, 
And slowly at the sheriff's side, up the long street 

I passed ; 
I heard the murmur round me, and felt, but 

dared not see, 
How, from every door and window, the people 

gazed on me. 

And doubt and fear fell on me, shame burned 

upon my cheek, 
Swam earth and sky around me, my trembling 

limbs grew weak : 
"OLord! support thy handmaid ; and from her 

soul cast out 
The fear of man, which brings a snare, — the 

weakness and the doubt." 

Then the dreary shadows scattered, like a cloud 
in morning's breeze, 

And a low deep voice within me seemed whisper- 
ing words like these : 

" Though thy earth be as the iron, and thy heaven 
a brazen wall, 

Trust still His loving-kindness whose power is 
over all.'' 

We paused at length, where at my feet the sunlit 

waters broke 
On glaring reach of shining beach, and shingly 

wall of rock ; 
The merchant-ships lay idly there, in hard clear 

lines on high, 
Tracing with rope and slender spar their network 

on the sky. 



so 



CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK. 



Ami there were ancient citizens, cloak-wrapped "Well answered, worthy captain, shame on their 



ave and cold, 



cruel laws ! 



And uiim and aptains with Eaces Elan through the crowd in murmurs loud the peo 



bronzed and old, 



pie's just applause. 



\nil i>n his horse, with Rawsbn, his cruel clerk at " Like the herdsman of Tekoa, in Israel of old 

■ i 01 .11 j.i._ ] -:..li :_ j 



hand, 

rkandhaughtj Endicott, the ruler of the 

land. 

And poisoning with his evi] words the rider's 

read] 
The priesl leaned o'ei his saddle, with laugh and 

i and jeer ; 
It stirred my soul, anl from my lips the seal of 

Bilence broke, 
As if through woman's weakness a warning spirit 

spoke. 

I cried, "Tha Lord rebuke thee, thou smiter of 

the meek ! 
Thou robber oi the righteous, thou trampler of 

the weak ! 
Go light tin' darlc, cold hsarth-stones, — go turn 

the prison lock 
Of the poor hearts thou hast hunted, thou wolf 

amid the flock ! " 

Dark lowered the brows of Endicott, and with a 

deeper red 
O'er Rawson's wine-empurpled cheek the flush of 

anger spread ; 
"Good people," quoth the white-lipped priest, 

'■ hi id not her words so wild, 
Her Master speaks within her, — the Devil owns 

his child!" 

But gray heads shook, and young brows knit, the 

while the sheriff read 
That law the wicked rulers against the poor have 

made, 
Who to their house of Rimmon and idol priest- 

h I bring 

No bended knee of worship, nor gainful offering. 

Then to the stout sea-captains the sheriff, turn- 
ing, said, — 

"Which of ye, worthy seamen, will take this 
Quaker maid ? 

In the Isle of fair Barbadoes, or on Virginia's 
shore, 

You may hold her at a higher price than Indian 
girl or Moor." 

Grim and silent stool the captains; and when 

again he cried, 
" Speak out, my worthy seamen ! " — no voice, no 

sign replied ; 
But I felt a hard hand press my own, and kind 

words met my ear, — 
"God bless thee, and preserve thee, my gentle 

girl and dear ! " 

naed lifted from my heart, — a pity- 
ing friend was nigh, 

I felt it in his hard ad, and saw it in his 

eye ; 

And win d again the sheriff spoke, that voice, so 
kind to ini-, 

Growled bai I wer like the roaring 

of the sea, — 

"Pile my ship with liars of silver, — pack with 

coins of Spanish gold, 
From keel-piece up to deck plank, the roomage 

hold, 

By the living ( tod who made me ! — 1 would sooner 
r bay 

Sink ship and m u and cargo, than bear this child 
awaj ! " 



Shall we see the poor and righteous again for 
silver sold ? " 

I looked on haughty Endicott; with weapon half- 
way di awn, 

Swept round the throng his lion glare of bitter 
hair nd scorn ; 

Fiercely he drew his bridle rein, and turned in 
silenci back, 

And . neeriiig priest and baffled clerk rode mur- 
muring in his track. 

Hard after them the sheriff looked, in bitterness 

of soul ; 
Thrice smote his staff upon the ground, and 

crushed his parchment roil. 
"Good friends," he said, "since both have fled, 

the ruler and the priest, 
Judge ye, if from their further work 1 lie not 

well released." 

Loud was the cheer which, full and clear, sw. pt 

round the silent bay. 
As, with kind words and kinder looks, he bade m3 

go my way ; 
For He who turns the courses of the streamlet of 

the glen, 
And the river of great waters, had turned the 

hearts of men. 

O, at that hour the very earth seemed changed 

beneath my eye, 
A holier wonder round me rose the blue walls of 

the sky, 
A lovelier light on rock anil hill and stream and 

woodland lay, 
And softer lapsed on sunnier sands the waters of 

the bay. 

Thanksgiving to the Lord of life!— to Him. all 

praises be, 
Who from the hands of evil men hath set his 

handmaid free ; 
All praise to Him before whose power the mighty 

1 raid, 
Who takes the crafty in the snare which for the 

poor is laid ! 

Sing, O my soul, rejoicingly, on evening's twilight 

calm 
Uplift the loud thanksgiving, — pour forth the 

grateful psalm ; 
Lit all dear hearts with me rejoice, as aid the 

saints of old, 
When of the Lord's good angel the rescued Peter 

told. 

And weep and howl, ye evil priests and mighty 

men of wrong. 
The Lord shall smite the proud, and lay his hand 

Upon the st mil-. 

Woe to tin' wicked rulers in his avenging hour ! 
Woe to the wolves who seek the flocks to raven 

and devour ! 

But let the humble ones arise,— the poor in heart 

be glad, 
And let the mourning ones again with robes of 

praise be C ad. 
For He who cooled the furnace, and smoothed the 

stormj wave, 
And tamed the Chaldean lions, is mighty still to 

save ! 



FUNERAL TREE OF THE SOKOKIS.— ST. JOHN. 



31 



FUNERAL TREE OF THE SOKOKIS. 

L756. 

Around Sebago's lonely lake 
There lingers not a breeze to break 
The mirror which its waters make. 

The solemn pines along its shore, 

The firs which hang its gray rocks o'er, 

Are painted on its glassy floor. 

The Mm Looks o'er, with hazy eye, 
The snowy mountain-tops which lie 

Piled coldly up against the sky. 

Dazzling and white ! save where the bleak, 
Wild winds have bared some splintering peak, 

Or snow-slide left its dusky streak. 

Vet green are Saco's banks below, 
And belts of spruce and cedar show, 
Dark fringing round those cones of snow. 

The earth hath felt the breath of spring, 
Though yet on her deliverer's wiug 
The lingering frosts of winter cling. 

Fresh grasses fringe the meadow-brooks, 
And mildly from its sunny nooks 
The blue eye of the violet looks. 

And odors from the springing grass, 
The sweet birch and the sassafras, 
Upon the scarce-felt breezes pass. 

Her tokens of renewing care 

Hath Nature scattered everywhere, 

In bud and flower, and warmer air. 

Bat in their hour of bitterness, 
What reek the broken Sokokis, 
Beside their slaughtered chief, of this ? 

The turf's red stain is yet undried, — 
Scarce have the death-shot echoes died 
Along Sebago's wooded side : 

And silent now the hunters stand, 
Grouped darkly, where a swell of land 
Slopes upward from the lake's white sand. 

Fire and the axe have swept it bare, 
Save one lniii- beech, unclosing there 
Its light leaves in the vernal air. 

With grave, cold looks, all sternly mute, 
They break the damp turf at its foot, 
And bare its code 1 and twisted root. 

They heave the stubborn trunk aside, 
The firm roots from the earth divide, — 
The rent beneath yawns dark and wide. 

And there the fallen chief is laid, 
In tasselled garbs of skins arrayed, 
And girded with his wampum-braid. 

The silver cross h loved is pressed 
Beneath the heavy arms, which rest 
Upon his scarred and naked breast. 

'T is done : the roots are backward sent, 
The beechen-tree stands up unbent, — 
The Indian's ritting monument ! 

When of that sleeper's broken race 
Their green and pleasant dwelling-place 
Which knew them once, retains no trace ; 



O, long may sunset's light be shed 
As now upon that beech's head, — 
A green memorial of the dead ! 

There shall his fitting requiem be, 

In northern winds, that, cold and free, 

Howl nightly in that funeral tree. 

To their wild wail the waves which break 
Forever round that lonely lake 
A solemn undertone shall make ! 

And who shall deem the spot unblest, 
Where Nature's younger children rest, 
Lulled on their sorrowing mother's breast ? 

Deem ye that mother lovethless 
These bronzed forms of the wilderness 
She foldeth in her long caress V 

As sweet o'er them her wild-flowers blow 
As if with fairer hair and brow 
The blue-eyed Saxon slept below. 

What though the places of then - rest 
No priestly knee hath ever pressed, — 
No funeral rite nor prayer hath blessed ? 

What though the bigot's ban be there, 
And thoughts of wailing and despair, 
And cursing in the place of prayer ! 

Yet Heaven hath angels watching round 
The Indian's lowliest forest-mound, — 
And they have made it holy ground. 

There ceases man's frail judgment ; all 
His powerless bolts of cursing fall 
Unheeded on that grassy pall. 

O, peeled, and hunted, and reviled, 
Sleep on, dark tenant of the wild ! 
Great Nature owns her simple child ! 

And Nature's God, to whom alone 
The secret of the heart is known, — 
The hidden language traced thereon ; 

Who from its many cumberings 
Of form and creed, and outward things, 
' To light the naked spirit brings ; 

Not with our partial eye shall scan, 
Not with our pride and scorn shall ban, 
The spirit of our brother man ! 



ST. JOHN. 

1047. 

" To the winds give our banner! 

Bear homeward again ! " 
Cried the Lord of Acadia, 

Cried Charles of Estienne ; 
From the prow of his shallop 

He gazed, as the sun, 
From its bed in the ocean, 

Streamed up the St. John. 

O'er the blue western waters 

That shallop had passed, 
Where the mists of Penobscot 

Clung damp on her mast. 
St. Saviour had looked 

On the heretic sail. 
As the songs of the Huguenot 

Rose on the gale. 



82 



ST. JOHN. -PENTUC Kb/I'. 



The i 

Remembered her well, 
And hi - ' while passing, 

Wit i tapi 

yionhegan, 

Of] lorred, 

Had i 'l feasted 

■i LC L nil. 

Tlicy had loaded his shallop 

With dun-fish and ball, 
With his larder, 

And stt 1 1 Eor his wall. _ 

dd, 1 1 < .iii her bastions 

And turrets of stone, 
Had welcomed his coming 

With banner and gun. 

And i!i M he elders 

Had followed his way, 
lided, 

Down Pentecost Bay. 
O. well sped La Tour ! 

For, in peril and pain, 
His hi,l\ kept watch, 

For his coming again. 

O'er the Isle of the Pheasant 

The morning sun shone, 
On the plane-trees which shaded 

The shores of St. .John. 

"Now, why from yon battlements 

Speaks not my Love ! 
Why waves there no banner 

My lord oss above ? " 

Dark and wild, from his deck 

St. Bstienne gazed about, 
On tire-wasted dwellings, 

And silent redoubt ; 
From the low, shattered walls 

Which the flame had o'errun, 
There floated no banner, 

There thundered no gun ! 

But beneath the low arch 

Of its doorway there' stood 
A pale priest of Rome, 

In his cloak and his hood. 
With the bound of a lion, 

La Tour sprang to land, 
On the throat of the Papist 

He fastened his hand. 

" Speak, son of the Woman 

Of sin ! 

What wolf has been prowling 

My ■ tin?" 

Prom I ■' ' he soldier 

The Jesuit broke, 
Half iii scorn, half in sorrow, 

He 

" No wolf, Lord of Estienne, 

Has ravaged thy hall, 
But thy red handed rival, 

With lire, steel, and ball ! 
On an errand of m 

1 hitherwa rd came, 
While the walls of thy castle 

Yet spouted with flame. 

" Pentagoet's dark \< 

Wire moored in the bay, 

Grim roaring 

\1 1 lor their prey." 

" Hut what of my lady V " 

lee of B itienne : 
" On I arret 

Thj lady was seen : 



" Half-veiled in the smoke-cloud, 
Her hand grasped thy pennon, 

, i' ! lei- dark tresses swayed 
In the hot breath of cannon ! 

But woe to I he heretic, 
Evermore woe ! 

When the soli of the church 
And the cross is his foe ! 

"In the track of the shell, 

In the path of the ball, 
Pentagoet swept over 

'The breach of: the wall ! 
Steel to steel, gun to gon, 

One moment, — and then 
Alone stood the victor, 

Alone with his men ! 

" Of its sturdy defenders, 

Thy lady alone 
Saw the cross blazoned banner 

Float over St. John." 
" Let the dastard look to it ! " 

< 'i led fiery Estienne, 
" Were D'Aulney King Louis, 

I 'd free her again ! " 

" Alas for thy lady ! 

No service from thee 
Is needed by her 

Whom the Lord hath set free : 
Nine days, in stern silence, 

Her thraldom she bore, 
But, the tenth morning came, 

And Death opened her door ! " 

As if suddenly smitten 

La Tour staggered back; 
His hand grasped his sword-hilt, 

His forehead grew black. 
He sprang on the deck 

( >f lo, shallop again. 
" We cruise now for vengeance ! 

Give way ! " cried Estienne. 

"Massachusetts shall hear 

Of the Huguenot's wrong, 
And from island and creekside 

Her fishers shall throng! 
Pentagoet shall rue 

What his Papists have done, 
When his palisades echo 

The Puritan's gun ! " 

O, the loveliest of heavens 

Hung tenderly o'er him, 
There were waves in the sunshine, 

And green isles before him : 
But a pale hand was beckoning 

The Huguenot on ; 
And in blackness and ashes 

Behind was St. John ! 



PENTUCKET. 

1 70S. 

How sweetly on the wood-girt town 
The meilowlighi of sunset shone ! 
Each small, bright lake, whose waters still 
Mirror I he forest and the hill, 
Reflected from its waveless breast 

The beauty of a cloudless west, 
Glorious as if a glimpse were given 
Within the western gates of heaven, 
Left, b\ the spirit of the star 
Of sunset's holy hour, ajar ! 



PENTUCKET.— THE FABULIST'S HYMN. 



33 



Beside the river's tranquil flood 

The dark and low-walled dwellings stood, 

Where man open land 

ched up and down cm either hand, 
With corn-leaves waving freshly green 
The thick and blackened stumps between. 
Behind, unbroken, de >p and dread, 
The wild, untravelled forest spread. 
Back to those mountains, white and cold, 
Ol which the Indian trapper told, 
Upon whose summits never yet 
Was mortal foot in safety set. 

Quiet and calm, without a fear 
Of danger darkly lurking near, 
The weary laborer left his plough, — 
The milkmaid carolled by her cow, — 
From cottage door and household hearth 
Rose songs of praise, or tones of mirth. 
At length the murmur died away, 
And silence on that village lay, — 
So slept Pompeii, tower and hall, 
Ere the quick earthquake swallowed all, 
Undreaming of the fiery fate 
Which made its dwellings desolate ! 

Hours passed away. By moonlight sped 
The Merrimack along his bed. 
Bathed in the pallid lustre, stood 
Dark cottage-wall and rock and wood, 
Silent, beneath that tranquil beam, 
As the hushed grouping of a dream. 
Yet on the still air crept a sound, — 
No bark of fox, nor rabbit's bound, 
Nor stir of wings, nor waters flowing, 
Nor leaves in midnight breezes blowing. 

Was that the tread of many fe t. 
Which downward from the hillside beat ? 
What forms were those which darkly stood 
Just em the margin of the wood ? — 
Charred tree-stumps in the moonlight dim, 
Or paling rude, or leafless limb ? 
No, — through the trees fierce eyeballs glowed, 
Dark human forms in moonshine showed, 
Wild from their native wilderness, 
With painted limbs and battle-dress ! 

A yell the dead might wake to hear 
Swelled on the night air, far and clear, — 
Then smote the Indian tomahawk 
On crashing door and shattering lock, — 
Then rang the rifle-shot, — and then 
The shrdl death-scream of stricken men,— 
Sank the red axe in woman's brain, 
And childhood's cry arose in vain, — 
Bursting through roof and window came, 
Red, fast, and tierce, the kindled flame ; 
And blended fire and moonlight glared 
On still dead men and weapons bared. 

The morning sun looked brightly through 
The river willows, wet with dew. 
No sound of combat filled the air, — 
No shout was heard, — nor gunshot there : 
Yet still the thick and sullen smoke 
From smouldering ruins slowly broke; 
And on the greensward many a stain, 
And, here and there, the mangled slain, 
Told how that midnight bolt had sped, 
Pentueket, on thy fated head ! 

Even now the villager can tell 
Where Rolfe beside his hearthstone fell, 
Still show the door of wasting oak, 
Through which the fatal death-shot broke, 
And point the curious stranger where 
De Rouville's corse lay grim and bare, — 
Whose hideous head, in death still feared, 
Bore not a trace of hah or beard, — 



And still, within the churchyard ground, 
Heaves darkly up the ancient mound, 
Whose grass-grown surface overlies 
The victims of that sacrifice. 



THE PAMILIST'S HYMN. 

V \tiier ! to thy suffering poor 

Strength and grace and faith impart, 
And with thy own love restore 

Comfort to the broken heart ! 
O, the failing ones confirm 

With a holier strength of zeal ! — 
Give thou not the feeble worm 

Helpless to the spoiler's heel ! 

Father ! for thy holy sake 

We are spoiled and hunted thus ; 
Joyful, for thy truth we take 

Bonds and burthens unto us : 
Poor, and weak, and robbed of all, 

Weary with our daily task, 
That thy truth may never fall 

Through our weakness, Lord, we ask 

Round our fired and wasted homes 

Flits the forest-bird unscared, 
And at noon the wild beast comes" 

Where our frugal meal was shared ; 
For the song of praises there 

Shrieks the crow the livelong day ; 
For the sound of evening prayer 

Howls the evil beast of prey ! 

Sweet the songs we loved to sing 

Underneath thy holy sky, — 
Words and tones that used to bring 

Tears of joy in every eye, — 
Dear the wrestling hours of prayer, 

When we gathered knee to knee, 
Blameless youth and hoary hair, 

Bowed, O God, alone to thee. 

As thine early children, Lord, 

Shared their wealth and daily bread, 
Even so, with one accord, 

We, in love, each other fed. 
Not with us the miser's hoard, 

Not with us his grasping hand ; 
Equal round, a common board, 

Drew our meek and brother band ! 

Safe our quiet Eden lay 

When the war-whoop stirred the lane 
And the Indian turned away 

From our home his bloody hand. 
Well that forest-ranger saw, 

That the burthen and the curse 
Of the white man's cruel law 

Rested also upon us. 

Torn apart, and driven forth 

To our toiling hard and long, 
Father ! from the dust of earth 

Lift we still our grateful song ! 
Grateful, — that in bonds we share 

In thy love which maketh free ; 
Joyful, — that the wrongs we bear, 

Draw us nearer, Lord, to thee ! 

Grateful ! — that where'er we toil, — 

By Waclmset's wooded side, 
On Nantucket's sea-worn isle, 

Or by wild Xeponset's tide, — 
Still, in spirit, we are near, 

And our evening hymns, which rise 
Separate and discordant here, 

Meet and mingle in the skies ! 



34 



THE FAMILIST'S HYMN.— THE FOUNTAIN. 



Lei the scoffer scorn and mock, 

Lei tii.' proud and evi] p 
Rob tile needj o1 bis floi 

For his wine cup and his feast, — 
Redden no1 thj h 

Through the blackness ol thj skies? 
be sighing of the | : 

Wilt Thou not, at length, arise? 

Worn and wasted, oh! how Ion;-; 

SI. .ill ih\ i rodden poor complain ? 
bear the « i 

In t by cause tiic bonds of pain ! 
Melt oppression's bearl ol' steel, 

L( i t In' haughty priesl bood see, 
Ami their blinded followers feel, 

That in us they mock at Thee ! 

In thy time, Lord of hosts, 
Stretch abroad that hand to save 

Which of "M, on EgJ pt's coasts, 
Smote apart the Li' ■■ i Sea's wave ! 

L< ad us from this evil land, 
Prom I h i spoilt i' set us tree, 

Ami once more our gathered hand, 
Heart to heart, shall worship thee! 



THE FOUNTAIN. 

Traveller ! on thy journey toiling 

By the sua it Powow, 
With the summer sunshine falling 

On thy heated brow, 
Listen, while all else is still, 
To the brooklet from the hill. 

Wild and sweet the flowers are blowing 

By that streamlet's side, 
Ami a greener verdure showing 

Where its waters glide, — 
Down the hill-slope murmuring on, 
Over root and mossy stone. 

Where yon oak his broad arms flingeth 

O'er the sloping hill, 
Beautiful and freshly springeth 

That sof t-tiowing rill, 
Through its dark roots wreathed and bare, 
Gushing up to sun and air. 

Brighter waters sparkled never 

In that magic well, 
Of whose gift of life forever 

Ancient legends tell, — 
111 the lonely desert wasted, 
And by mortal lip untasted. 

Waters which the proud Castilian 31 

Sought with longing eyes, 
Underneath the bright pavilion 

( )f the I ndiaii skies ; 
Where his forest pathway lay 
Through the blooms of Florida. 

Fears ago a lonely stranger, 

With the dusky brow 
Of the outcast forest-ranger, 

Crossed the swift Powow ; 

And betook him to the rill 
And the oak upon the hill. 

O'er his face of moody sadness 

For an instanl shone 
Something like a gleam of gladness, 

A - be si ooped him down 
fountain's grassy side, 
And his eager thirst supplied. 



With the oak its shadow throwing 
( )'er his mossy si at, 

Ami tin: cool, bwi 1 1 waters flowing 

Softly at his f< et, 
Closely by the fountain's rim 
That lone Indian seated him. 

Autumn's earliest frost had given 

To the woods In low- 
Hues of beauty, such as heaven 

Lendeth to its bow ; 
And the soil breeze from the west 
Scarcely broke their dreamy rest. 

Far behind was Ocean striving 

With his chains of sand ; 
Southward, sunny glimpses giving, 

"1'wixt the swells of land, 
Of its calm and silvery track, 
Rolled the tranquil Merrimack. 

Over village, wood, and meadow 

Gazed that stranger man, 
Sadly, till the twilight shadow 

Over all things ran, 
Save where spire and westward paue 
Flashed the sunset back again. 

Gazing thus upon the dwelling 

( )f his warrior sires, 
Where no lingering trace was telling 

Of their wigwam fires, 
Who the gloomy thoughts might know 
Of that wandering child of woe V 

Naked lay, in sunshine glowing, 

Hills that once had stood 
Down their sides the shadows throwing 

Of a mighty wood, 
Where the deer his covert kept, 
And the eagle's pinion swept ! 

Where the birch canoe had glided 

Down the swift Powow, 
Dark and gloomy bridges strided 

Those clear waters now ; 
And where once the beaver swam, 
Jarred the wheel and frowned the dam. 

For the wood-bird's merry singing, 

And the hunter's cheer, 
Iron clang and hammer's ringing 

Smote upon his ear ; 
And the thick and sullen smoke 
From the blackened forges broke. 

Could it be his fathers ever 

Loved to linger here ? 
These bare hills, this conquered river, — 

Could they hold them dear, 
With their native loveliness 
Tamed and tortured into this ? 

Sadly, as the shades of even 

Gathered o'er the hill, 
While the western half of heaven 

Blushed with sunset still, 

From the fountain's mossy seat 
Turned the Indian's weary feet. 

Year on year hath flown forever, 

But he came no more 
To the hillside or the river 

When- he came before. 
But the villager can tell 
Of that strange man's visit well. 

And the merry children, laden 
With their fruits or flowers, — 



THE EXILES. 



35 



Roving boy ami laughing maiden, 

In their school-day hours, 
Love the simple tale to tell 
Of the Indian and his well. 



THE EXILES. 
1660. 
The goo [man sat beside his door 

< lili' sulny a i t moon. 
With his young v. at his side 

An old and goodly tune. 

A glimmer of heat was in the air ; 

The dark green woods were still ; 
And the skirts of a heavy thunder-cloud 

Hung over the western hill. 

Black, thick, and vast arose that cloud 

Above the wilderness, 
As some dark world from upper air 

Were stooping over this. 

At times the solemn thunder pealed, 

And all was still again, 
Save a low murmur in the air 

Of coming wind and rain. 

Just as the first big rain-drop fell, 

A weary stranger came, 
And stood before the fanner's door, 
With travel soiled and lame. 

Sad seemed he, yet sustaining hope 

Was in his quiet glance, 
Ami peace, like autumn's moonlight, clothed 

His tranquil countenance. 

A look, like that his Master wore 

In Pilate's council-hall : 
It told of wrongs, — but of a love 

Meekly forgiving all. 

" Friend ! wilt thou give me shelter here ? " 

The stranger meekly said ; 
And, leaning on his oaken staff, 

The goodman's features read. 

"My life is hunted, — evil men 

Are following in my track ; 
The traces of the torturer's whip • 

Are on my aged back. 

" And much, I fear, 't will peril thee 

Within thy doors to take 
A bunted seeker of the Truth, 

Oppressed for conscience' sake." 

O. kindly spoke the goodman's wife, — 
•• Come in, old man ! " quoth she, — 

•• We will not leave thee to the storm, 
Whoever thou mayst be. " 

Then came the aged wanderer in, 

And silent sat him down ; 
While all within grew dark as night 

Beneath the storm-cloud's frown. 

But while the sudden lightning's blaze 

Pilled every cottage nook. 
And with the jarring thunder-roll 

The 1 i d casements shook, 

A heavy tram]! of horses' feet 

Came sounding up the lane. 
And half a seme of horse, or more, 

Came plunging through the rain. 



"Now, Goodman Macey, ope thy door, — 
We would not be house-breakers ; 

A rueful deed thou 'st done this day, 
In harboring banished Quakers." 

Out looked the cautious goodman then, 

With much of fear and awe, 
For there, with broa I wig drenched with 
rain, 

The parish priest he saw. 

" Open thy door, thou wicked man, 

Am! let thy pastor in, 
And give God thanks, if forty stripes 
Repay thy deadly sin." 

" What seek ye ? " quoth the goodman, — 

"The stranger is my guest : 
He is worn with toil and grievous wrong, — 

Pray let the old man rest.'' 

"Now, out upon thee, canting knave ! " 
And strong hands shook the door. 

"Believe me, Macey," quoth the priest, — 
"Thou 'It rue thy conduct sore." 

Then kindled Macey's eye of fire: 
" No priest who walks the earth, 

Shall pluck away the stranger-guest 
Made welcome to my hearth." 

Down from his cottage wall he caught 

The matchlock, hotly tried 
At Preston-pans and Marston-moor, 

By fiery Ireton's side ; 

Where Puritan, and Cavalier, 

With shout and psalm contended; 

And'Rupert's oath, and Cromwell's prayer, 
With battle-thunder blended. 

Up rose the ancient stranger then : 

" My spirit is not free 
To bring the wrath and violence 

Of evil men on thee : ' 

"And for thyself, I pray forbear, — 

Bethink thee of thy Lord, 
Who healed again the .smitten ear, 

And sheathed his follower's sword. 

" I go, as to the slaughter led : 

Friends of the poor, farewell!" 
Beneath his hand the oaken door 

Back on its hinges fell. 

"Come forth, old gray beard, yea and nay," 

The reckless scoffers cried, 
As to a horseman's saddle-bow 

The old man's arms were tied. 

And of his bondage hard and long 

In Boston's crowded jail, 
Where suffering woman's prayer was heard, 

With sickening childhood's wail, 

It suits not with our tale to tell : 
Those scenes have passed away, — 

Let the dim shadows of the past 
Brood o'er that evil day. 

"Ho. sheriff!" quoth the ardent priest, — 
" Take Goodman Macey too ; 

The sin of tliis day's heresy 
His back or purse shall rue."' 

"Now, good wife, haste thee ! " Macey cried, 

►She caught his manly arm : — 
Behind, the parson urged pursuit, 

With outcry and alarm. 



BO 



THE EXILES.— THE NEW WIFE AND THE OLD. 



Ho! speed bhe Mao \ , neck or naught, — 
near: — 

TJ e 
Was music to their ear. 

^ gray rod lied o'er with birch, 

is bung, 

v, ave, 
A small lighi wli 

A leap— they gain the boat- and bhere 
Th • goodmi - oar : 

" 111 luck bi all," — he cried, — 

•■ The laggards upon the shore." 

Down bhrough bhe crashing underwood, 

The burlj tie: — 

"Stand, Goodman Macey, yield thyself ; 

STield in the King's own name." 

" Now nut upon thy hangman's fare!" 

I Sold Macey answered then, — 

11 Whip worm //, on the village green, 
But meddle not with rru m." 

The priest came panting to the shore, — 

II I hat was gone; 

i him, like some owl's nest, hung 
His wig upon a thorn. 

"Come back, — come back ! " the parson cried, 

'■ The ( burch's curse beware." 
"Curse, an' thou wilt," said Macey, "but 

Thy blessing prithee spare." 

" Vile scoffer I " cried the baffled priest, — 

" Thou 'It yet the gallows see." 
"Who's born to be hanged, will not be 
drowned," 

Quoth Macey, merrily; 

" And so, sir sheriff and priest, good by ! " 

He bent him to his oar, 
And the small boat glided quietly 

From the twain upon the shore. 

Now in the west, 1 be heavy clouds 

Scattered and tell asunder, 
While feebler came the rush of rain, 

And fainter growled the thunder. 

And through the broken clouds, the sun 

Looked out serene and warm, 
Painting its holy symbol-light 

Upon the passm;.; storm. 

O, beautiful ! that rainbow span, 
< i'i-v dim ( 'i ane-neck was bended ; — 

One bright, foot touched the eastern hills, 
And our witb ocean blended, 

By green Pentucket's southern slope 

The small boat glided last, — 
The watchers of " the Block-house" saw 

The stran j passed. 

That night a stalwart garrison 

Sat shaking in their shoes, 
To hear th'' dip of Indian oars, — 

The glide of birch canoes. 

The fisher-wives of Salisbury, 
(Tiie men were all away,) ' 

1 r oar 
Upon their waters play. 

Deer-Island's rocks and fir-trees threw 
Their Btinset-shadows o'er them, 

And Newbury's spire and weathercock 
Peered o'er the pines before them. 



Around the Black Hocks, on their left, 
The marsh laj broad and gtv □ ; 

And on their right, with dwarf shrubs 
ci ow ned, 
Plum Island's hills were seen. 

With skill ul hand and wary eye 

The barbor-bar was crossed; — 
A plaj thing oi I eresi less wave, 

The boat on ocean tossed. 

The glory of the sunset heaven 

On land and water lay, — 
On the steep hills of Agawam, 

( >n cape, and bluff, and bay. 

They passed the gray rocks of Cape Ann, 
Ami ( S-loucester's hai bor-har ; 

The watch lire of I he ga 

Shone like a setting star. 

How brightly broke the morning 

( )n Massachusetts Bay ! 
Bine wave, and bright green island, 

Rejoicing in the day. 

On passed the bark in safety 

Round isle and headland steep, — 

No tempest broke above them, 
No fog-cloud veiled the deep. 

Far round the bleak and stormy Cape 

The vent'rous Macey passed, 
And on Nantucket's naked isle 

Drew up his boat at last. 

And how, in log-built cabin, 
They braved the rough sea-weather; 

And there, in peace and quietness, 
Went down life's vale together : 

How others drew around them, 

And how their fishing sped, 
Until to every wind of heaven 

Nantucket's sails were spread ; 

How pale Want alternated 

With Plenty's golden smile ; 
Behold, is it not written 

In the annals of the isle ? 

And yet that isle rcmaiueth 

A refuge of the free, 
As when true-hearted Macey 

Beheld it from the sea. 

Free as the winds that winnow 

Her shrubless hills of sand, — 
Free as the waves that batter 

Along her yielding land. 

Than hers, at duty's summons, 

No loftier spirit stirs, — 
Nor falls o'er human suffering 

A readier tear than hers. 

Ood bless the sea-beat island ! — 

And grant forevermore, 
That chanty and freedom dwell 

As now upon her shore ! 



THE NEW WIFE AND THE OLD. 

Dare the halls, and cold the feast, — 
< tone the bridesmaids, gone the priest: 
All is over, — all is done, 
Twain of yesterday are one ! 



THE NEW WIFE AND THE OLD. 



37 



Blooming girl and manhood gray, 
Autumn in the arms of May ! 

Hushed within and hushed without, 
Dancing feet and wrestlers' shout ; 
Dies the bonfire on the hill ; 
All is dark and all is still, 
Save the starlight, save the breeze 
Moaning through the graveyard trees ; 
And the great sea-waves below, 
Pulse of the midnight beating slow. 

From the brief dream of a bride 
She hath wakened, at his side. 
With half-uttered shriek ami start, — 
Feels she not his beating heart? 
And the pressure of his arm, 
And his breathing near and warm ? 

Lightly from the bridal bed 

Springs that fair dishevelled head, 
And a feeling, new, intense, 
Half of shame, half innocence, 
Maiden fear and wonder speaks 
Through her lips and changing cheeks. 

Prom the oaken mantel glowing 
Faintest light the lamp is throwing 
On the mirror's antique mould. 
High-backed chair, and wainscot old, 
And, through faded curtains stealing, 
His dark sleeping face revealing. 

Listless lies the strong man there, 
Silver-streaked his careless hair ; 
Lips of love have left no trace 
On that hard and haughty face ; 
And that forehead's k titted thought 
Love's soft hand hath not unwrought. 

" Yet," she sighs, "he loves me well, 
More than these calm lips will tell. 
Stooping to my lowly state, 
He hath made me rich and great, 
And I bless him, though he be 
Hard and stern to all save me ! " 

While she speaketh, falls the light 
O'er her fingers small and white ; 
Gold and gem, and costly ring 
Back the timid lustre fling, — 
Love's selectest gifts, and rare, 
His proud hand had fastened there. 

Gratefully ~.he marks the glow 
From those tapering lines of snow ; 
Fondly o'er the sleeper bending 
His black hair with golden blending, 
In her soft and light caress, 
Cheek and lip together press. 

Ha !— that start of horror !— Why 
That wild stare and wilder cry, 
Full of terror, full of pain V 
Is there madness in her brain V 
Hark ! that gasping, hoarse and low, 
" Spare me, — spare me, — let me go ! " 

God have mercy ! — Icy cold 
Spectral hands her own enfold, 
Drawing silently from them 
Love's fair gifts of gold and gem, 



' ' Waken ! save me ! " still as death 
At her side lie slumbcreth. 

Ring and bracelet all are gone, 
And that ice-cold hand withdrawn ; 
But she hears a- murmur low, 
Full of Bweetness, lull of woe, 
Half a sigh and half a moan : 
" Fear not ! give the dead her own ! " 

Ah ! — the dead \\ i He's voice she knows ! 
That cold hand, whose pressure froze, 
Once in warmest life had borne 
Gem and band her own hath worn. 
"Wake thee ! wake thee ! "' Lo, his eyes 
Open with a dull surprise. 

In his arms the strong man folds her, 
Closer to his breast he holds her ; 
Trembling limbs his own are meeting, 
And he feels her heart's quick beating : 
" Nay, my dearest, why this fear ?" 
" Hush ! " she saith, "the dead is here ! " 

" Nay, a dream, — an idle dream." 

But before the lamp's pale gleam 

Tremblingly her hand she raises, — 

There no more the diamond blazes, 

Clasp of pearl, or ring of gold, — 

" Ah ! " she sighs, " her hand was cold ! " 

Broken words of cheer he saith, 

But his dark lip quivereth, 

And as o'er the past he thinketh, 

From his young wife's arms he shrinketh ; 

Can those soft arms round him lie, 

Underneath his dead wife's eye? 

She her fair young head can rest 
Soothed and childlike on his breast, 
And in trustful innocence 
Draw new strength and courage thence ; 
He, the proud man, feels within 
But the cowardice of sin ! 

She can murmur in her thought 
Simple prayers her mother taught, 
And His blessed angels call. 
Whose great love is over all ; 
He, alone, in prayerless pride. 
Meets the dark Past at her side ! 

One, who living shrank with dread 
From his look, or word, or tread, 
Unto whom her early grave 
Was as freedom to the slave, 
Moves him at this midnight hour, 
With the dead's unconscious power ! 

Ah, the dead, the unforgot ! 

From their solemn homes of thought, 

Where the cypress shadows blend 

Darkly over foe and friend, 

Or in love or sad rebuke, 

Back upon the living look. 

And the tenderest ones and weakest, 
Who their wrongs have borne the meekest, 
Lifting from those dark, still places, 
Sweet and sad-remembered faces, 
O'er the guilty hearts behind 
An unwitting triumph find. 



38 



TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE. 



VOICES QF FREEDOM. 



Prom L838 to 184S. 



TOUSSAINT [/OUVERTURE. 



'T was night. The tranquil moonlight smile 

With which H aven dreams of Earth,shed down 

[ndian isle, — 
On bi Seld and white-walled town; 

A 1 1 ■ 1 inland waste of rook and wood, 
In searching sunshine, wild and rude, 

ellowed through the silver gleam, 

the landscape of a dream, 
All motionless and dewy wet, 
Tree, vine, and flower in shadow met 
The m\ rtle owy bloom, 

Crossing the nightshade's solemn gloom, — 
The white oecropia's silver rind 
Relieved l>.\ deeper green behind,-- 
The orange with its fruit of gold, — 
The lithe paullinia's verdant fold, — 
The passion-flower, with symbol holy. 
Twining its tendrils Long and lowly, — 
The rhexias dark," and cassia tall, 
And proudly rising over all, 
The kingly palm's imperial stem, 
Crowned with its leafy diadem, 
Stai Lit i, b meath whose sombre shade, 
The fiery-winged cucullo played ! 
Yes, — lovely was thine aspect, then, 

Pair island of the Western Sea ! 
Lavish of beauty, even when 
Thy brutes were happier than thy men, 

For they, at least, were free ! 
Regardless of thy glorious clime, 

I iiinindful of thy soil of flowers, 
The boiling negro sighed, that Time 

No Easter sped his hours. 
For, by the dewy moonlight still, 
He (ci\ the weary-turning mill, 
Or bent him in the chill morass, 
To I- ig and tangled grass, 

Ami hear above his scar worn back 
The heavy slave -whip's frequent crack : 
While m his heart one evil thought 
In solitary madness wrought, 
One baleful lire surviving still 

Tie- quenching of the immortal mind, 

( hie stern, i' passion of his kind, 
Which even fetters could not kill, — 
The ativage hope, to deal, erelong, 
A \ engeanc I dan his wrong ! 

Hark to that cry ! — long, loud, and shrill, 

field and forest, roelc and hill, 
Thrilling and horrible it rang, 

Ai'oniei, beneath, above; — 
The wild beast from his cavern sprang, 

The wild bird from her gi ove ! 

Nor fear, lei,- joy, inn .; 

\\> n Ln that midnight cry; 

Bui liK ■ iiie linn's growl of wrath, 
When falls that; hunter in his path 
Who row, deeply Bet, 

It to! Eull, deep, and strong, 

Of \ indling out of wrong; 

It was as ii of years — 

The unrequited toil, the tears, 
The sham.- and h i well 

Earth'* garden to the nether hell — 
Had ; ure's sel f a ti rague, 

On ■. I horror hung ; 

As if from cliff, and stream, and glen 

fursl on t hi 
hat voice winch uses unto God, 



Solemn ahd stern, — the cry of blood ! 
tt ceased, and all was still once more, 
Save ocean chafing on his shore, 
The sighing of the wind between 
The broad banana's leaves of green, 
Or bough by restless plumage shook, 
< »i noil muring voice of mountain brook. 

Brief was the silence. Once again 

Pealed to the skies that frantic yell, 
Olowed on the tea vet is a, liery stain, 

And Hashes rose and fell ; 
Ami painted on the blood-red sky, 
Dark, naked arms were tossed on high ; 
And, round the white man's lordly hall, 

Trod, fierce and free, ///. brute hf made : 
And those who crept along the wall, 
And answered to his lightest call 

With more than spaniel .head, — 
Tin' creatures of his lawless beck, — 
Were trampling on his very neck ! 
.' ml on the night-air, wild and clear, 
Rose woman's shriek of more than fear ; 
For bloodied arms were round her thrown, 
And dark cheeks pressed against her own ! 

Then, injured Afric! — for the shame 
Of thy own daughters, vengeance came 
E'ull mi the scornful hearts of those, 
Who mocked bhee in thy nameless woes, 
And to thy hapless children gave 
One choice, — pollution or the grave ! 
Where then was he whose liery zeal 
Had taught the trampled heart to feel, 
Until despair itself grew strong, 
And vengeance fed its torch from wrong ? 
Now, when the thunderbolt is speeding; 
Now, when oppression's heart is bleeding ; 
Now, when the latent curse of Time 

Is raining down in fire and blood, — 
That curse which, through long years of crime, 

Has gathered, drop by drop, its flood, — 
Why strikes he not, the foremost one, 
Where murder's sternest deeds are done? 

He stood the ag.d palms beneath, 

That shadowed o'er his humble door, 
I Listening, with half-suspended breath, 
To the wild sounds of tear and death, 

Toussaint l'< >uverture ! 
What marvel that his heartbeat high ! 

The blow lor Ire. .loin had been given, 
And blood had answered to the cry 

Which Earth sent up bo Heaven! 
What marvel that, a fierce delight 
Smiled grimly o'er his brow of night, — 
\s .410.111 and shout and bursting flame 
Told u here the midnighl tempt -i came, 
With blood and lire along its van, 
And death behind !— he was a Man ! 

Yes, dark-souled chief tain !— if the light 
Of mild Religion's heavenly ray 

Unveiled not to thy mental sight 

The lowlier and the purer way, 
In which the Holy Sufferer trod, 

Mi .1,1 \ amidst the sons of crime, — 
That calm ri liance upon < bid 

for jus1 lee 111 liis own good time, — 
That gentleness to winch belongs 
Forgiveness for it s manj wrongs, 
Even as the primal martyr, kneeling 
For mercy on the evil-dealing, — 



TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE.— THE SLAVE-SHIPS. 



39 



L t not the favored white man name 
Thy stern appeal, with words of blame. 
Has he not, with the lighl of heaven 

Broadly around him, made the same? 
Yea, on his thousand war-fields striven, 

Ami gloried in his ghastly shame V — 
Kneeling amidst his Brother's blood. 
To offer mockery unto < rod, 
As if the High and Holy One 
Could smile on deeds of murder done!— 
As if a human saci 
Were purer in his Hol\ 
Though offered up by Christian hands, 
Than the foul rites of Pagan lands ! 



Sternly, amidst his household band, 
His carbine grasped within his hand, 

The white man stood, prepared and still, 
Waiting the shock of maddened nun, 
Unchained, and fierce as tigers, when 

The horn winds through their caverned hill. 
And one was weeping in his sight, — 

The sweetest flower of all the isle, — 
The bride who seemed but yesternight 

Love's fair embodied smile. 
And, clinging to her trembling knee, 
Looked up the form of infancy, 
With tearful glance in either face 
The secret of its fear to trace. 

" Ha ! stand or die ! " The white man's eye 

His steady musket gleamed along, 
As a tall Negro hastened nigh, 

With tearless step and strong. 
"What, ho, Toussaint!" A moment more, 
His shadow crossed the lighted floor. 
" Away ! " lie shouted ; "fly with me, — ■ 
The white man's bark is on the sea; — 
Her sails must catch the seaward wind, 
For sudden vengeance sweeps behind. 
Our brethren from their graves have spoken, 
The yoke is spumed, — the chain i sbroken ; 
On all the hills our fires are glowing, — 
Through all the vales red blood is flowing ! 
No more the mocking White shall rest 
11 is foot upon the Negro's breast; 
No more, at morn or eve, shall drip 
The warm blood from the driver's whip : 
Yet. though Toussaint has vengeance sworn 
For all the wrongs his race- have borne, — 
Though for each drop of Negro blood 
The white man's veins shall pour a flood ; 
Not all alone the sense of ill 
Around his heart is lingering still, 
Nor deeper can the white man feel 
Th' generous warmth of grateful zeal. 
Friends of the Negro ! fly with me, — 
The path is open to the sea, : 
Away, for life ! " — He spoke, and pressed 
The young child to his manly breast, 
As, headlong, through the cracking cane, 
Down swept the dark insurgent train, — 
Drunken ami grim, with shout and yell 
Howled through the dark, like sounds from 
hell. 

Far out. in peace, the white man's sail 
Swayed free before the sunrise gale. 
Cloud-like that island hung afar, 

Along the bright horizon's verge, 
O'er which the curse of servile war 

Rolled its red torrent, surge on surge ; 
And he — the Negro champion — where 

In the fierce tumult struggled he ? 
Co trace him by the fiery glare 
Of dwellings in the midnight air, — 
The yells of triumph and despair, — 

The streams that crimson to the sea ! 



Sleep calmly in thy dungeon-tomb, 

Beneath Besaneon's alien sky, 
Dark Haytien ! — for the time shall come, 

Yea, even now is nigh, — 
When, everywhere, thy name shall be 
Redeemed from color's infamy ; 
And men shall learn to speak of thee, 
As one of earth's great spirits, born 
In servitude, and nursed in scorn, 
Casting aside the weary weight 
And fetters of its low estate, 
In that strong majesty of soul 

Which knows mi color, tongue, or clime, — 
Which still hath spurned the base control 

Of tyrants through all time ! 
Far other hands than mine may wreathe 
The laurel round thy brow of death, 
And speak thy praise, as one whose word 
A thousand fiery spirits stirred, — 
Who crushed his fo man as a worm, — 
Whose step on human hearts fell firm: — 33 
Be mine the better task to find 
A tribute for thy lofty mind. 
Amidst whose gloomy vengeance shone 
Some milder virtues all thine own, — 
Some gleams of feeling pure and warm, 
Like sunshine on a sky of storm, — 
Proofs that the Negro's heart retains 
Some nobleness amidst its chains, — 
That kindness to the wronged is never 

Without its excellent reward, — 
Holy to human-kind, and ever- 
Acceptable to God. 



THE SLAVE-SHIPS. 34 

"That fatal, that perfidious bark, 
Built i 1 the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark." 

Miltori's 1-ycidas. 

"All ready '? " cried the captain ; 

" Ay, ay ! " the seamen said ; 
" Heave up the worthless lubbers, — 

The dying and the dead." 
Up from the slave-ship's prison 

Fierce, bearded heads were thrust : 
" Now let the sharks look to it, — 

Toss up the dead ones first ! " 

Corpse after corpse came up, — 

Death had been busy there ; 
AVhere every blow is mercy, 

Why should the spoiler spare ? 
Corpse after corpse they cast 

Sullenly from the ship, 
Yet bloody with the traces 

Of fetter-link and whip. 

Gloomily stood the captain, 

With his arms upon his breast, 
With his cold brow sternly knotted, 

And his iron lip compressed. 
" Are all the dead dogs over . " 

Crowded through that matted lip, — 
" The blind ones are no better, 

Let's lighten the good ship." 

Hark ! from the ship's dark bosom, 

The very sounds of hell ! 
The ringing clank of iron, — 

The maniac's short sharp, yell ! — 
The hoarse, low curse, throat-stifled, — 

The starving infant's moan, — 
The horror of a breaking heart 

Poured through a mother's groan. 

Up from that loathsome prison 
The stricken blind ones came: 

Below, had all been darkness, — 
Above, was still the same. 



10 



Til i; SLAVE-SHIPS.— STANZAS. 



Yet the holy breath of heaven 

Was 

And ill" heated brow of fever 
< looled In the sofi sea air. 

"Overboard with them, shipmates!" 

Cutlass and dirk were plied ; 
il and blind, one after one, 

Plunge l down bhe vessel's side. 
The sal n e si ■ above, — 

Beneath, the lean shark lay, 
Waiting with wide and bloody jaw 

His quick and human prej . 

Godoi 

Rang upward unto thee? 
Voices of agony and blood, 

Prom ship-deck and from sea. 

The last, dull plunge was heard, — 

The last wave caught its stain, — 
And t lie misaled shark looked up 

For human hearts in vain. 

* # # * ::■ 

Red glowed the western waters, — 

The M trin ; sun was there, 

ring alike on wave and cloud 

His fiery mesh of hair. 
Amidst a group in blindness, 

A solitary eye 
Gazed, from the burdened slaver's deck, 

Into that burning sky. 

" A storm," spoke out the gazer, 

"Is gathering and at hand, — 
Curse on 't — I VI give my other eye 

For one firm rood of land. " 
And then he laughed, — but only 

His echoed laugh replied, — 
For the blinded and the suffering 

Alone were at his side. 

Night settled on the waters, 

And on a stormy heaven. 
While fiercely on that lone ship's track 

The thunder-gust was driven. 
" A sail !— thank God, a sail ! " 

And as the helmsman spoke, 
Up through the stormy murmur 

A shout of gladness broke. 

Down came the stranger vessel, 

Unheeding on her way, 
So near that on the slaver's deck 

Fell off her driven spri 
"Ho ! for the love of mercy, — 

We 're perishing and blind ! " 
A wail of utter agony 

Came back upon the wind : 

" Help us! for we are stricken 

With blindness every one; 
Ten days we've floated fearfully, 

Unnoting star or sun. 
Our ship 's the slaver Leon, — 

We \e but a score on board, — 
Our slaves are all gone over, — 

Help, — for the love of < rod ! " 

On livid brows of 

The broad red lightning shone, — 
But the roar of wind and thunder 

Stilled the answering groan ; 
Wailed from the broken waters 

A last despairing cry, 
As, kindling in th light, 

The stranger ship went by. 
* * * * * 

In the sunny Guadaloupc 
A dark-hulled vessel lay, 



With a crew who noted never 

The niglil tall or the day. 
The blossom of the oi a 

Was white by every stream. 
And tropic leaf, and flower, and bird 

Were in the warm Bunbeam. 

And the sky was bright as ever. 
And the moonlight slept as well, 

On the palm I rees by I he hillsidi , 
And i he -I reamlet of the dell : 

And i he glances of the Creole 

Were still as archly deep, 
And her smiles as full as ever 

Of passion and of sleep. 

But vain were bird and blossom, 

The green earth and the sky, 
And the smile of human faces, 

To the slaver's darkened eye ; 
At the breaking of the morning, 

At the star-lit evening time, 
O'er a world of light and beauty 

Fell the blackness of his crime. 



STANZAS. 

[" The despotism which our fathers could not bear in 
their native country is expiring, and the sword of jus- 
tice in her reformed hands has applied its exterminating 

edge to slavery, shall the United slate: — the free 
United Slates, which could not bear the bonds of a king 
— cradle the bondage which a king is abolishing? Shall 
a Republic be less free than a Monarch) ': Shall we, in 
the vigor and Buoyancy of our manhood, be li 
getic in righteousness than a kingdom in its age? " — /'/■. 
Fuilen'.s Address. 

" i i-enius of America ! — Spirit of our free institutions ! 
— where art thou? — How art thou fallen. ( i Lucifer ! son 
of the morning, — how art thou fallen from Heaven! 
Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at 
thy coming! — The king's of the earth cry out to thee, 
Aha! Aha! — art thou become like unto us?' - — 
Speech of Samuel J. May.] 

Our fellow-countrymen in chains ! 

Slaves — in a land of light and law ! 
Slaves — crouching on the very plains 

Where rolled the storm of freedom's war ! 
A groan from En taw's haunted wood, — 

A wail where Camden's martyrs fell, — 
By every shrine of patriot blood, 

From Moultrie's wall and Jaspar's well ! 

By storied hill and hallowed grot, 

By mossy wood and marshy glen, 
Whence rang of old the rifle shot:. 

And hurrying shout of Marion's men! 
The groan of breaking hearts is there, — 

The falling lash, — the fetter's clank ! 
Slaves, —slaves are breathing in that air, 

Which old De Kalb and Sumter drank ! 

What, ho! — our countrymen in chains ! 

The whip on woman's shrinking flesh ! 
Our soil yet reddening w ith t he stains 

Caught from her scourging, warm and fresh ! 
What! mothers from their children riven! 

What ! God's own imag bought and sold ! 
Americans to market driven, 

And bartered as the brute for gold ! 

Speak ! shall their agony of prayer 

Come thrilling to our hearts in vain'? 
To us whose fathers scorned to bear 

The palm menace of a chain ; 
To us, whose boast is loud and long 

Of holy Liberty and Light, — 
Sax. shall these writhing slaves of Wrong 

Plead vainly for their plundered Right ? 



STANZAS. 



II 







I 










• Our fellow-countrymen in chains ! " 



What ! shall we send, with lavish breath, 

Our sympathies across the wave. 
Where Manhood, on the field of death, 

Strikes for his freedom or a grave ? 
Shall prayers go up, and hymns be sung 

For Greece, the Moslem fetter spurning, 
And millions hail with pen and tongue 

Our light on all her altars burning ? 

Shall Belgium feel, and gallant France, 

By Vendome's pile anil Schoenbrun's wall, 
And Poland, gasping on her lance, 

The impulse of our cheering call? 
And shall the slave, beneath our eye, 

Clank o'er our fields his hateful chain? 
And toss his fettered arms on high, 

And groan for Freedom's gift, in vain ? 

O, say, shall Prussia's banner be 

A refuge for the stricken slave ? 
And shall the Russian serf go free 

By Baikal's lake and Neva's wave ? 
And shall the wintry-bosomed Dane 

Relax the iron hand of pride, 
And bid his bondmen cast the chain, 

From fettered soul and limb, aside ? 

Shall every flap of England's flag 

Proclaim that all around are free, 
From "farthest Ind " to each blue crag 

That beetles o'er the Western Sea ? 
And shall we scoff at Europe's kings, 

When Freedom's fire is dim with us, 
And round our country's altar clings 

The damning shade of Slavery's curse ? 

Go — let us ask of Constantine 

To loose his grasp on Poland's throat ; 
And beg the lord of Mahmoud's line 

To spare the struggling Suliote, — 
Will not the scorching answer come 

From turbaned Turk, and scornful Russ : 
" Go, loose your fettered slaves at home, 

Then turn, and ask the like of us ! " 



Just God ! and shall we calmly rest, 

The Christian's scorn— the heathen's mirth- 
Content to live the lingering jest # 

And by-word of a mocking Earth ? 
Shall our own glorious land retain 

That curse which Europe scorns to bear? 
Shall our own brethren drag the chain 

Which not even Russia's menials wear? 

Up, then, in Freedom's manly part, 

From graybeard eld to fiery youth, 
And on the nation's naked heart 

Scatter the living coals of Truth ! 
Up, — while ye slumber, deeper yet 

The shadow of our fame is growing ! 
Up, — while ye pause, our sun may set 

In. blood, around our altars flowing ! 

Oh ! rouse ye, ere the storm comes forth, — 

The gathered wrath of God and man, — 
Like that which wasted Egypt's earth, 

When hail and fire above it ran. 
Hear ye no warnings in the air ? 

Feel ye no earthquake underneath ? 
Up, — up ! why will ye slumber where 

The sleeper only wakes in death ? 

Up noiu for Freedom ! — not in strife 

Like that your sterner fathers saw, — 
The awful waste of human life, — 

The glory and the guilt of war : 
But break the chain, — the .yoke remove, 

And smite to earth Oppression's rod, 
With those mild arms of Truth and Love, 

Made mighty through the living God ! 

Down let the shrine of Moloch sink, 

And have no traces where it stood ; 
Nor longer let its idol drink 

His daily cup of human blood ; 
But rear another altar there, 

To Truth and Love and Mercy given, ■ 
And Freedom's gift, and Freedom's prayer, 

Shall call an answer down from Heaven ! 



42 



TIIE YANKEE GIRL.— SONG OF THE FREE. 



THE YANKEE GIRL. 

She rings by her whirl ai tJi.it low cottage-door, 
Which the Long evening shadow is stretching be- 
fore, 
With a music as Bweet as the music which si 'cms 
Breathed softly and faint in the ear of our 
dreams ! 

How brilliant and mirthful the light of her eye, 
Like a star glancing out from the IjIuc of the 

sky ! 
And lightly and freely her dark tresses play 
O'er ;i brow and a bosom as lovely as they ! 

Who comes in his pride to that low cottage- 
door, — 
The haughty and rich to the humble and poor ? 
'T is the great Southern planter, — the master 

waves 
His whip of dominion o'er hundreds of slaves. 

"Nay, Ellen, — for shame! Let those Yankee 

fools spin, 
Who would pass for our slaves with a change of 

their skin ; 
Let them toil as they will at the loom or the 

wheel, 
Too stupid for shame, and too vulgar to feel ! 

" But thou art too lovely and precious a gem 
To be bound to their burdens and sullied by 

them, — 
For shame, Ellen, shame, — cast thy bondage 

aside. 
And away to the South, as my blessing and 

pride. 

" O, come where no winter thy footsteps can 

wrong, 
But where flowers are blossoming all the year 

Long, 
Where the shade of the palm-tree is over my 

home, 
And the lemon and orange are white in their 

bloom ! 

" 0, come to my home, where my servants shall 

ail 
Depart at thy bidding and come at thy call; 
They shall heed thee as mistress with trembling 

and awe,* 

And each wish of thy heart shall be felt as a 
law." 

O, could ye have seen her — that pride of our 

girl's — 
Arise and east back the dark wealth id' her curls, 
With a scorn in her eye which the gazer could 

feel. 

And a glance like the sunshine that flashes on 
steel ! 

"Go back, haughty Southron! thy treasures of 
gold 

Are' dim with tin/ blood of the hearts thou hast 

Thy home may he lovely, but round it I hear 
The crack of the whip and the footsti ps of fear ! 

'■ And the' sky of thy South may lie brighter than 

ours. 
And thy landscapes, and fairer thy 

flowers ; 
But dearer the Mast, round our mountains which 

Than the sweet summer zephyr which breathes 
over slaves ! 



"Full low at thy bidding thy negroes may kneel, 
With the iron of bondage mi spirit and heel ; 
Yet know that the Yankee girl sooner would be 
In fetters with them, than in freedom with 
thee ! " 



TO W. L. G. 

CHAMPION of those who groan beneath 

Oppression's iron hand : 
In view of penury, hate, and death, 

1 see t hee fearh ss stand. 
.-till bearing up thy lofty brow, 

In the steadfast strength of truth, 
In manhood sealing well the vow 

And promise of thy youth. ^ 

(io on, — for thou hast chosen well ; 

On in the strength id' ( tod ! 
Long as one human heart shall swell 

Beneath the tyrant's rod. 
Speak in a, slumbering nation's ear, 

As thou hast ever spoken, 
Until the dead in sin shall hear, — 

The fetter's link lie broken ! 

I love thee with a brother's love, 

I feel my pulses thrill. 
To mark thy spirit soar above 

The cloud of human ill. 
My heart hath leaped to answer thine, 

And echo back thy words, 
As leaps the warrior's at the shine 

And flash of kindred swords ! 

They tell me thou art rash and vain, — 

A searcher alter fame ; 
That thou art striving but to gain 

A long-enduring name; 
That thou hast, nerved the Afrie's hand 

And steeled the Afrie's heart, 
To shake aloft his vengeful brand, 

And rend his chain apart. 

Have I not known thee well, and read 

Thy mighty purpose long? 
And watched the trials which have made 

Thy human spirit strong? 
And shall the slanderer's demon breath 

Avail with one like me, 
To dim the sunshine of my faith 

And earnest trust in thee ? 

Go on,— the dagger's point may glare 

Amid thy pathway's gloom, — 
The fate which sternly threatens there 

Is glorious martyrdom ! 
Then onward with a martyr's zeal ; 

And wait thy sure reward 
When man to man no more shall kneel, 

And God alone be Lord ! 
1833. 



SONG OF THE FREE. 

Pride of New England ! 

Smd of our fathers ! 
Shrink we all cravendike, 

When the storm gathers ? 
What though the tempest be 

Ovi c ns Lowering, 
Where's the New- Englander 

Shamefully cowering ? 
( ;im\ es green and holy 

Around us are lying, — 
Free were fie' sleepers all, 

Living ami dying ! 



THE HUNTERS OF MEN.— CLERICAL OPPRESSORS. 



43 



Back with the Southerner's 

Padlocks and scourges ! 
Go, — let him fetter down 

Ocean's free surges ! 
Go, — let him silence 

Winds, clouds, and waters, 
Never New England's own 

Free sons and daughters ! 
1 i - as our rivers are 

Ocean-ward going, — 
l''i e as the breezes are 

Over us blowing. 

Up to our altars, then, 

Haste we, and summon 
Courage and loveliness, 

Manhood and woman ! 
Deep let our pledges be : 

Freedom forever ! 
Truce with oppression, 

Never. ( ). never ! 
By our own birthright-gift, 

Granted of Heaven, — ■ 
Freedom for heart and lip, 

Be the pledge given ! 

If we have whispered truth, 

Whisper no longer ; 
Speak as the tempest does, 

Sterner and stronger ; 
Still be the tones of truth 

Louder and firmer, 
Startling the haughty South 

With the deep murmur ; 
God and our charter's right, 

Freedom forever ! 
Truce with oppression, 

Never, O, never ! 
1836. 



THE HUNTERS OF MEN. 

Have ye heard of our hunting, o'er mountain 

and glen, 
Through cane-brake and forest, — the hunting of 

men ''. 
The lords of our land to this hunting have gone, 
As the fox-hunter follows the sound of the horn; 
Hark ! — the cheer ami the hallo ! — the crack of 

the whip, 
And the yell of the hound as he fastens his grip! 
All blithe are our hunters, and noble their 

match, — 
Though hundreds are caught, there are millions 

to catch. 
So speed to their hunting, o'er mountain and 

glen, 
Through cane-brake and forest, — the hunting of 

men ! 

Gay luck to our hunters ! — how nobly they ride 
In the glow of their zeal, and the strength of 

their pride ! — 
The priest with his cassock flung hack on the 

wind, 
Just screening the politic statesman behind, — 
The saint and the sinner, with cursing and 

prayer, 
The drunk and the sober, ride merrily there. 
And woman, — kind woman, — wife, widow, and 

maid, 
For the good of the hunted, is lending her aid : 
Her foot's in the stirrup, her hand on the rein, 
How blithely she rides to the hunting of men ! 

O, goodly and grand is our hunting to see, 
In this " land of the brave and this home of the 
free." 



Priest, warrior, and statesman, from Georgia to 

Maine, 
All mounting the saddle, — all grasping the rein, — 
Right merrily hunting the black man, whose sin 
Is tin.' curl of his hair ami the hue of his skin ! 
Woe, now, to tiie hunted who turns him at bay ! 
Will our hunters be turned from their purpose 

and prey ? 
Will their hearts fail within them ? — then nerves 

tremble, when 
All roughly I i the hunting of men ? 

Ho ! — alms for our hunters ! all weary and 

faint, 
Wax the curse of the sinner and prayer of the 

saint. 
The horn is wound faintly, — the echoes are still, 
Over cane-brake and river, and forest and hill. 
Haste, — alms for our hunters ! the hunted once 

more 
Have turned from their flight with their backs to 

the shore : 
What right have they here in the home of the 

white, 
Shadowed o'er by oar banner of Freedom and 

Right ? 
Ho ! alms for the hunters ! or never again 
Will they ride in their pomp to the hunting of 

men ! 

Alms, — alms for our hunters ! why will ye de- 
lay, 

When their pride and their glory are melting 
away ? 

The parson has turned ; for, on charge of his 
own, 

Who goeth a warfare, or hunting, alone? 

The politic statesman looks back with a sigh, — 

There is doubt in his heart, — there is fear in his 
eye. 

O, haste, lest that doubting and fear shall pre- 
vail, 

And the head of his steed take the place of the 
tail. 

O, haste, ere he leave us ! for who will ride then, 

F..r pleasure or gain, to the hunting of men? 
1835. 



CLERICAL OPPRESSORS. 

[In the report of the celebrated proslavery meeting in 

Charlestown, S. C, on the 4th of the nth month, 1835, 

i in the Courier of that city, it is stated : " The 

CLERGY of all denominations a a body, 

LENDING THEIB SANCTION TO THE PROCEEDINGS, and 

adding by their presence to the impressive character of 
ae ! "] 

Just God ! — and these are they 
Who minister at thine altar, God of Right ! 
Men who their hands with prayer and blessing 
lay 

On Israel's Ark of light ! 

What ! preach and kidnap men ? 
Give thanks,— and rob thy own afflicted poor? 
Talk of thy glorious liberty, and then 

Bolt hard the captivi 's door ? 

What ! servants of thy own 
Mi rciful Son, who came to seek and save 
; omeless and the outcast,— fettering down 

The tasked and plundered slave ! 

Pilate and Herod, friends ! 
Chief pilots and rulers, as of old, combine ! 
Just God and holy ! is that church, which lends 

Strength to the spoiler, thine ? 



14 



THE CHRISTIAN SLAVE.— STANZAS FOR THE TIMES. 



Paid In pocrites, \\ ho burn 
Jndgmenl aside, and rob the Boly Book 
Of those high words of truth which search and 
burn 

In warning and rebuke; 

Feed fat, ye loc I ' 

And, in i lied pulpits, thank the Lord 

That, from the toiling bondman's utter need, 

Ye pile \ our own full boai d. 

How long, <> Lord ! how Lo 
Shall such a priesthood barter truth away, 
And in thy as ibbery and wrong 

At thy i>\\ n altars praj ? 

Is not thy hand stretched forth 
Visibly in the heavens, to awe and smite? 
Shall not the living < rod of all the earth, 

And heaven above, do right ? 

Woe, then, to all who grind 
Their brethren oi a common Father down! 
To all who plunder From the immortal mind 

Its bright and glorious crown ! 

Woe to t lie priesthood ! woe 
To those whose hire is with the price of blood, — 
Perverting, darkening, changing, as they go, 

The searching truths of God 

Their glory and their might 
Shall perish; and their very names shall be 
Vile before all the people, in the light 

Of a world's liberty. 

O, speed the moment on 
When Wion , and Liberty and Love 

And Truth and Right throughout the earth be 
known 

As in their home above. 



THE CHRISTIAN SLAVE. 

[In a late publication of L. T. Tasistro — " Random 
Shots and Southern Breezes "—is a description of a slave 
auction at New Orleans, at which the auctioneer recom- 
the woman on the stand as ,- a good Chris- 
tian ! "] 

A Christian ! going. 
Who bids for ( rod's own image? — for his grace, 
Which that poor victim of tin- market-place 

Hath in her suffi 

My ( lod ! can such things be ? 
Hast thou not said that whatsoe'er is done 
Unto thy weakest and thy humblest one 

Is even done to | 

In that sad victim, then, 
Child of thy pitying love, I see thee stand, — 
I -word of a mocking band, 
Bound, sold, and scou] 

A Christian up for sale ! 
Wet with her blood your wdiips, o'er-task her 

.ne. 

Make' her life loathsome with your wrong and 
shame, 
Her patience shall no! 

A b al hen hand might 

-d wrong o 
But her low j htly tears, 

Ye ueit I Ee I. 

< 'on wi 11 thy lesson o'i r, 
Thon. prudent teacher, tell the toiling slave 



.No dangerous tale of Him who came tosa\c 
The outcast and the poor. 

But wisely shut the ray 
Of < rod's tree < rospel from her simple heart, 
And to her darkened mind alone impart 

One stern command, — Obei ! 

So shalt thou deftly raise 
The market price of human ilesh ; and while 
On thee, their pampered guest, the planters 

smile, 

Thy church shall praise. 

(have, reverend men shall tell 
From Northern pulpits how thy work was blest, 
While in that vile South Sodom first and best, 

Thy poor disciples sell. 

O, shame ! the Moslem thrall, 
Who, with his master, to the' Prophet kneels, 
While turning to tin- sacred Kehla feels 

His fetters break and fall. 

Cheers for the turbaned Bey 
Of robber-peopled Tunis ! he hath torn 
The dark slave-dungeons open, and hath borne 

Their inmates into day : 

But our poor slave in vain 
Turns to the Christian shrine his aching eyes, — 
Its rites will only swell his market price, 

And rivet on his chain. 

(hid of all right ! how long 
Shall priesl i I ol bers at thine altar stand, 
Lifting in prayer to thee, the bloody hand 

And haughty brow of wrong ? 

O, from the fields of cane, 
From the low rice-swamp, from the trader's 

cell,— 
From the black slave-ship's foul and loathsome 
hell, 
And coffle's weary chain, — 

Hoarse, horrible, and strong, 
Rises to Heaven that agonizing cry, 
Filling the arches of the hollow sky, 

How long, O God, how long ? 



STANZAS FOR THE TIMES. 

Is (his the land our fathers loved, 
The freedom which they toiled to win? 

Is this the soil whereon they moved? 
Are these I lie graves they slumber in? 

Are irr the sons by whom are liorne 

The mantles which the dead have worn" 

And shall we crouch ab t ra \ es, 

With craven soul and fettered lip? 

in with marked and branded slaves, 
And tremble at the driver's whip ? 
Bend to the earth our pliant knees, 
And speak— but as our masters please ? 

Shall outraged Nature cease to feel? 

Shall Mercy's tears no longer How? 
Shall ruffian threats of cord and steel, — 

The dungeon's gloom,— the assassin's blow, 
Turn back the spirit roused to save 
The Truth, our Country, and the Slave? 

hrine was m 
Round v i iesi s of Mexico 

ime idol prayed ; — 

Is Freedom's altar fashioned so ? 



STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.- LINES. 



45 



And must we yield to Freedom's God, 
As offering meet, the negro's blood? 

Shall tongues 1"' mute, when deeds are wrought 
Which well might shame extremes! hell? 

Shall freemen lock the indignant thought? 
Shall Pity's bosom cease to swell ? 

Shall Honor bleed?— shall Truth succumb? 

Shall pen, and press, and >oul be dumb? 

No; — by each spot of haunted ground, 
Where Freedom weeps her children's fall,— 

By Plymouth's rock, and Bunker's mound, — 
By Griswold's stained and shattered wall, — 

By Warren's ghost,— by Langdon's shade, — 

By all the mi 

By their enlarging souls, which burst 

The bands and tetters round them set, — 
By the free Pilgrim spirit nursed 

Within our inmost bosoms, yet, — 
By all above, around, below, 
Be ours the indignant answer, — NO ! 

No; — guided by our country's laws, 

For truth, and right, and suffering man, 

Be ours to strive in Freedom's cause, 
As Christians may, as freemen can ! 

Still pouring on unwilling ears 

That truth oppression on] 

What ! shall we guard our neighbor still, 
While woman shrieks beneath his o I 

And while he tramples down at will 
The image of a common ( rod ! 

Shall wat -h and ward be round him set, 

Of Northern nerve and bayonet ? 

And shall we know and share with him 
The danger and the growing shame ? 

And see our Freedom's light grow dim, 

Which should have filled the world with flame ? 

And, writhing, feel, where'er we turn, 

A world's reproach around us burn V 

Is 't not enough that this is borne ? 

And asks our haughty neighbor more ? 
Must fetters which his slaves have worn 

Clank round the Yankee farmer's door ? 
Must he be told, beside his plough, 
What he must speak, and when, and how? 

Must he be told his freedom stands 

On Slavery's dark foundations strong, — 

On breaking hearts and l'< !> red hands, 
On robbery, and crime, and wrong? 

That all his fathers taught is vain,— 

That Freedom's emblem is the chain ? 

Its life, its soul, from slavery drawn ? 

False, foul, profane ! Go, — teach a well 
Of holy Truth from Falsehood born ! 

Of Heaven refreshed by airs from Hell ! 
Of Virtue in the arms of Vice ! 
Of Demons planting Paradise ! 

Rail on, then, " brethren of the South," — 
Ye shall not hear the truth the less ; — 

No seal is on the Yankee's mouth, 
No fetter on the Yankee's press ! 

From our Green Mountains to the sea, 

One voice shall thunder, — We ake free! 



LINES, 

WRITTEN OX READING THE MESSAGE OF GOVER- 
NOR RITNER, OF PENNSYLVANIA, 183 1. 

Thank Cod For t he token !— one lip is still free,— 
One spirit untrammelled, — unbending one knee! 



Like the oak of the mountain, deep-rooted and 
firm, 
I when the multitude bends to the si 
When traitors to Freedom, and Honor, and Cod, 
Are bowed at an Idol polluted with blood : 

lie recr ian1 North has 6 c trust, 

e lip of her . iw in the dust,— 

Thank God, that one arm (nun the shackle has 

broken ! 
Thank Cod, that one man as a freem, 
spoken! 

O'er thy crags. Alleghany, a blast ha 3 1 leen blown ! 
Down thy tide, Susquehanna, the murmur lias 

gone ! 
To the land of the South,— of the charter and 

chain, — 
Of Liberty sweetened with Slavery's pain; 
Where the cant of Democracy dwells on the lips 
Of the forgers of fetters, and wielders of whips ! 
Where "chivalric" honor means really no more 
Than scourging of women, and robbing the poor ! 
Where the Moloch of Slavery sitteth on high, 
And the words which he utters, are — WOKSHir, 

ok die ! 

Right onward, O speed it ! Wherever the blood 
Of the wronged and the guiltless is cr\ 

God; 
Wherever a slave in his fetters is pining ; 
Wherever the lash of the driver is twining ; 
Wherever from kindred, torn rudely apart, 
Comes the sorrowful wail of the broken of heart ; 
"Wherever the shackles of tyranny bind, 
In silence and darkness, the Cod-given mind ; 
There, God speed it onward !— its truth will be 

felt,— 
The bonds shall be loosened, — the iron shall melt ! 

And O, will the land where the free soul of Penx 

Still lingers and breathes, over mountain and 
glen, — ■' 

Will the land where a Bexezet's spirit went 
forth 

To the peeled and the meted, and outcast of 
Earth,— 

Where the words of the Charter of Liberty first 

From the soul of the sage and the patriot burst,— 

Where first for the wronged and the weak of their 
kind. 

The Christian and statesman their efforts com- 
bined, — 

Will that land of the free and the good wear a 
chain ? 

Will the call to the rescue of Freedom be vain ? 

No, Ritner ! — her "Friends" at thy warning 

shall stand 
Erect for the truth, like their ancestral band ; 
Foi getting the feuds and the strife of past time, 
Counting coldness injustice, and silence a crime ; 
Turning back from the cavil of creeds, to unite 
Once again for the poor in defence of the* Right ; 
Breasting calmly, but firmly, the full tide of 

Wrong, 
Overwhelmed, but not borne on its surges-along ; 
Unappalled by the danger, the shame, and the 

pain, 
And counting each trial for Truth as their gain ! 

And that bold-hearted yeomanry, honest and 

true, 
Who, haters of fraud, give to labor its due ; 
Whose fathers, of old, sang in concert with thine, 
On the banks of Swetara, the songsof the Rhine, — 
The German-born pilgrims, who first dared to 

brave 
The scorn of the proud in the cause of the 

slave : — 



46 



THE TASTORAL LETTER. 



Will the sons of suchmen yield the lords of the 

South 
One brow for the brand, — for the padlock one 

mouth ? 

They ca ints? They rivet the chain, 

Which their fal hers smote off, on the negro again ? 

No, never!- one voice, like the sound in (he 

cloud, 
Winn the roar of the storm waxes loud and more 

loud, > 

Where'? ei the fool of bhe freeman hath pressed 
Prom ili" Delaware's marge to the Lakeof the 

West, 
On the :es shall deepen and grow 

Till the land it sweeps over shall tremble in 'low ! 
Tin voice of a people, — uprisen, — awake, — 
Pennsylvania's watchword, with Freedom at 

stake, 
Thrilling up from each valley, flung down from 

each height, 
"Our Cihntkv a.nd Liberty! — God for the 

Right ! " 



THE TASTORAL LETTER. 

80, this is all, — the utmost reach 

< >f priestly power the mind to fetter ! 
When laymen think — when women preach — 

A war of words — a " Pastoral Letter ! " 
Now, shame upon ye, parish Popes I 

Was it, thus with those, your predecessors, 
Who sealed with racks, and lire, and ropes 

Their loving-kindness to transgressors ? 

A " Pastoral Letter," grave and dull — 

Alas i in hoof and horns and features, 
How different is your Brookheld bull, 

From him who bellows from St. Peter's ! 
Your pastoral rights and powers from harm, 

Think ye, can words alone preserve them? 
Your wiser fathers taught the arm 

And sword of temporal power to serve them. 

O, glorious days, — when Church and State 

Were wedded by your spiritual fathers! 
And on submissive shoulders sat 

Your Wilsons and your Cotton Mathers. 
No vile "itinerant" then could mar 

The beaut) of your tranquil Zion, 
But at his peril of the scar 

Of hangman's whip and branding-iron. 

Then, wholesome laws relieved the Church 

Of heretic and mischief-maker, 
And priest and bailiff joined in search. 

By turns, of Papist, witch, and Quaker ! 
The stock ■ were at each church's door, 

The gallows stood on Boston Common, 
A Papist's ears the pillo 3 bore, — 

The gallows-rope, a, Quaker woman ! 

Your fathers dealt, not a- J e deal 
With "Hon professing" frantic teachers ; 

Thej bi id-hot Bteel, 

And backs of " female preachers." 

Old Newbury, had her fields a Ion 

And Salem's stn el - could tell their story, 

Of fainting woman dragged along, 

< rashed by the whip and gory ! 

And will ye ask me, why this taunt 
( >f '!'■ , id from 1 lie scorner ? 

And why with reckless hand I plant 
A uettle on 1 1,.' graves 1 1 honoi '. 

Not to reproach V w England's dead 
Tins record from the past I summon, 



< >f manhood to the scaffold led, 
And Buffering and heroic woman. 

No, — for yourselves alone, I turn 
The pages of intolerance over, 

That, in their spirit, dark aid stern, 

Ye haply may your own discover ! 
for, if ye claim the " pastoral right,," 

To silence Freedom's voice of warning, 
And from your precincts shut, the Light 

( >f Freedom's day ai ound ye dawning ; 

If when an earthquake voice of power, 
And signs in earth and heaven, are showing 

That, forth, in its appointed hour, 

The Spirit, of the Lord is going ! 
And, with that. Spirit. Freedom's light 

On kindred, tongue, and people breaking, 
Whose slumbering millions, at the sight, 

In glory and in strength are waking ! 

When for the sighing of the poor, 

And for the needy, God hath risen, 
And chains are breaking, and a, door 

Is opening for the souls in prison ! 
If then ye would, with puny hands, 

Arrest the very work of Heaven, 
And bind anew the evil bands 

Which God's right arm of power ha.th riven, - 

What marvel that, in many a mind, 

Those darker deeds of bigot madness 
Are closely with your own combined, 

Yet " less in anger than in sadness " ? 
What marvel, if the people learn 

To claim the right of free opinion ? 
What marvel, if at times they spurn 

The ancient yoke of your dominion ? 

A glorious remnant linger yet, 

Whose lips are wet at freedom's fountains, 
The coming of whose welcome feet 

Is beautiful upon our mountains ! 
Men. who the gospel tidings bring 

Of Liberty and Love forever, 
Whose joy is an abiding spring, 

Whose peace is as a gentle river ! 

Rut ye, who scorn the thrilling tale 

Of Carolina's high-souled daughters, 
Which echoes here the mournful wail 

Of sorrow from Edisto's waters, 
Close while ye may the public ear, — . 

With malice vex, with slander wound them, — 
The pure and good shall throng to hear, 

And tried and manly hearts surround them. 

O, ever may the power which led 

Their way to such a fiery trial, 
And strengthened womanhood to tread 

The winepress of such self-denial, 
Re round them in an evil land, 

With wisdom and with strength from Heaven, 
Witli Miriam's voice, and Judith's hand, 

And Deborah's song, for triumph given ! 

And what arc ye who strive with (bid 

Against the ark of his salvation. 
Moved bj the breath of prayer abroad, 

With bl.ssmgs for a dying nation? 

What, but the stubble and the hay 

To perish, even as (lax consuming, 
With all that, bars Ins glorious way. 

Before the brightness of his coining? 

And thou, sad Angel, who so long 

Hast waited tor the glorious token, 
That Earth from all her bonds of wrong 

To liberty and light, has broken, — 



LINES. 



4? 



Angel of Freedom ! soon to ( 

The Bounding trumpet shall be given, 
And over Earth's full p 

Shall deeper joy be felt in Heaven! 



LINES, 

WRITTEN FOR THE MEETING OF THE ANTI- 
SLAVERY SOCIETY, AT CHATHAM STR1 IT CHAP- 
EL, N. V., HELD ON THE 4TH OF THE 7 1 1 1 MONTH, 

is;l 

O Thou, whose presence went before 

Our fathers in their weary way. 
As with thy chos -n moved of yore 

The lire by night, the cloud by day ! 

When from each temple of the free, 
A nation's song ascends to Heaven, 

Most Holy Father ! unto thee 

May not our humble prayer be given? 

Thy children all, — though hue and form 
Are varied in thine own good will, — 

With thy own holy breathings warm, 
And fashioned in thine image still. 

We thank the?, Father ! — hill and plain 
Around us wave their fruits once more. 

And clustered vine, and blossomed grain, 
Are bending round each cottage door. 

And peace is here ; and hope and love 
Are round us as a mantle thrown, 

And unto Th e, supreme above, 
The knee of prayer is bowed alone. 

But O, for those this day can bring, 

As unto us, no joyful thrill, — 
For those who, under Freedom's wing, 

Are bound in Slavery's fetters still : 

For fchos - to whom thy living word 
Of light and love is never given, — 

For those who-- ears have never heard 
The promise and th? hope of Heaven ! 

For broken heart, and clouded mind, 
Whereon no human mercies fall, — 

(), be thy gracious love inclined. 
Who, as a Father, pitiest all ! 

Ami grant, O Father ! that the time 
Of Earth's deliverance may be near, 

When every land and tongue and clinic 
The message of thy love shall hear,— 

When, smitten as with fire from heaven, 
The captive's chain shall sink in dust. 

And to his fettered soul be given 
The glorious freedom of the just ! 



LINES, 



WRITTEN FOE TOE CELEBRATION OF THE TniRD 
ANNIVERSARY OF BRITISH EMANCIPATION AT 
THE BROADWAY TABERNACLE, N. V., "FIRST 
OF AUGUST," 1837. 

O Holy Father !— just and true 

Are all thy works and words and ways, 
And unto thee alone are due 

Thanksgiving and eternal praise! 
As children of thy gra 

We veil the eye, we bend the knee, 
With broken words of praise and prayer, 

Father and God, we come to thee. 



For thou hast heard, O God of lie 

The sighing of the island Blave ; 
And stretched lor him the arm of might, 

Not shortened that it. could not 
The laborer sjts beneath his vine, 

The shackled soul and hand are free, — 
Thanksgiving ! — for the work is thine ! 

Praise ! — for the blessing is of thee ! 
* 

And O, we feel thy presence here. — 

Thy awful arm in judgment b: l ' 
Thine eye hath seen the bondman's tear, — 

Thine ear hath heard the bondman's prayer. 
Praise ! — for the pride id' man is low. 

The counsels of the wise an' naught, 
The fountains of repenl ance flow ; 

What hath our God in mercy wrought? 

Speed on thy work, Lord God of Hosts ! 

And when the bondman's chain is riven, 
And swells from all our guilty coasts 

The anthem of the free to Heaven, 
O, not to those whom thou hast led, 

As with thy cloud and tire before, 
But unto thee, in fear and dread, 

Be praise and glory evermore. 



LINES, 

,'RITTEN FOR TOE ANNIVERSARY CEEERRATTON 
OF THE FIRST OF AUGUST, AT MILTON, 1841*. 

A tew brief years have passed away 

Since Britain drove her million slaves 
Beneath the tropic's fiery ray : 
God willed their freedom ; and to-day 
Life blooms above those island graves ! 

He spoke ! across the Carib Sea, 

We heard the clash of breaking chains, 

And felt the heart-throb of the free, 

The first, strong pulse of liberty 
Which thrilled along the bondman's veins. 

Though long delayed, and far, and slow, 

The Briton's triumph shall lie ours : 
Wears slavery here a prouder brow 
Than that which twelve short years ago 
Scowled darkly from her island bowers ? 

Mighty alike for good or ill 

With mother-land, we fully share 

The Saxon strength, — the nerve of steel, — 

The tireless energy of will, — 

The power to do, the pride to dare. 

What she has done can we" not do ? 

Our hour and men are both at hand; 
The blast which Freedom's angel blew 
O'er her green islands, echoes through 

Each valley of our forest land. 

Hear it, old Europe! we have sworn 

The death of slavery. — When it falls, 
Look to your vassals in their turn. 
Your poor dumb millions, crushed and worn, 
Your prisons and your palace walls ! 

O kingly mockers ! — scoffing show 

What deeds in Freedom's name we do; 
Yet know that every taunt ye throw 
Across the waters, goads our slow 

Progression towards the right and true. 

Not always shall your outraged poor, 
Appalled by democratic crime, 



48 



LINES.— THE FAREWELL. 




" Gone, gene, — sold and gone. 

To the rice-swamp dank and lone.'" 



Grind as their fathers ground before, — 
The hour which sees our prison door 
Swing wide shall be their triumph time. 

On then, my brothers ! every blow 

Ye deal is felt the wide earth through ■ 
Whatever here uplifts the low 
Or humbles Freedom's hateful foe. 
Blesses the Old World through the New. 

Take heart ! The promised hour draws 
near, — 

I hear the downward beat of wings, 
And Freedom's trumpet sounding clear : 
"Joy to the people ; woe and fear 

To new-world tyrants, old-world kings ! " 



THE FAREWELL 

OP A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO HER DAUGH- 
TERS SOLD INTO SOUTHERN BONDAGE. 

Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone. 
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings, 
Where the noisome in seel si Lags, 
Where the fever demon strews 
Poison with the falling dews, 
Where the sickly simh 
Through the hut ami misty air, — 
Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, 
From Virginia's hills and waters, — 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! 



Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice- swamp dank and lone. 
There no mother's eye is near them, 
There no mother's ear can hear them ; 
Never, when the torturing lash 
Seams their back with many a gash, 
Shall a mother's kindness bless them, 
Or a mother's arms caress thern. 
Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, 
From Virginia's hills and waters, — 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! 

Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone. 
O, when weary, sad, and slow, 
From the fields at night they go, 
Faint with toil, and racked with pain, 
To their cheerless homes again, 
There no brother's voice shall greet them,- 
There no father's welcome meet them. 
Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, 
Prom Virginia's hills and waters, — 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! 

Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone. 
From the tree whose shadow lay 
On their childhood's place of play, — 
From the cool spring where bhey drank, — 
Rock a: id hill, and rivulet bank, — 
Prom tie' solemn house of prayer, 
And the holy counsels there, — 
Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, 
From Virginia's hills and waters, — 
Wde is me, my stolen daughters ! 



THE MORAL WARFARE.— THE WORLD'S CONVENTION. 



49 



Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, — 
Toiling through the weary day, 
And at night the spoiler's prey. 
O that they had earlier died. 
Sleeping calmly, side by side. 
Whirr the tyrant's power is o'er, 
And the fetter galls no more ! 
Gone, gone, — sold and 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, 
From Virginia's hills and waters, — 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! 

Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone. 
By the holy love He beareth, — . 
By the bruised reed He spareth, — 
O, may He, to whom alone 
All their cruel wrongs are known, 
Still their hope and refuge prove, 
With a more than mother's love. 
Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, 
From Virginia's hills and waters, — 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! 



THE MORAL WARFARE. 

When Freedom, on her natal day, 

Within her war-rocked cradle lay, 

An iron race around her stood, 

Baptized her infant brow in blood ; 

And, through the storm which round her swept, 

Their constant ward and watching kept. 

Then, where our quiet herds repose, 
The roar of baleful battle rose, 
And brethren of a common tongue 
To mortal strife as tigers sprung, 
And every gift on Freedom's shrine 
Was man for beast, and blood for wine ! 

Our fathers to their graves have gone ; 
Their strife is past, — their triumph won ; 
But sterner trials wait the race 
Which rises in their honored place, — 



A moral warfare with the crime 
And folly of an evil time. 

So let it be. In God's own might 

We gird us Eor the coming tight, 

And, strong in Him whose cause is ours 

In conflict with unholy powers, 

We grasp the weapons lie has given, — 

The Light, and Truth, and Love of Heaven. 



THE WORLD'S CONVENTION 

OF THE FRIENDS OF EMANCIPATION, HELD IN 
LONDON IN 1S40. 

Yes, let them gather ! — Summon forth 
The pledged philanthropy of Earth, 
From every land, whose hills have heard 

The bugle blast of Freedom waking ; 
Or shrieking of her symbol-bird 

From out his cloudy eyrie breaking : 
Where Justice hath one worshipper, 
Or truth one altar built to her ; 
Where'er a human eye is weeping 

O'er wrongs which Earth's sad children know, — 
Where'er a single heart is keeping 

Its prayerful watch with human woe : 
Thence let them come, and greet each other, 
And know in each a friend and brother ! 

Yes, let them come ! from each green vale 

Where England's old baronial halls 

Still bear upon their storied walls 
The grim crusader's rusted mail, 
Battered by Paynim spear and brand 
On Malta's rock or Syria's sand ! 
And mouldering pennon- staves once set 

Within the soil of Palestine, 
By Jordan and Genesaret ; 

Or, borne with England's battle line, 
O'er Acre's shattered turrets stooping. 
Or, midst the camp their banners drooping, 

With dews from hallowed Hermon wet, 
A holier summons now is given 

Than that gray hermit's voice of old, 





mil 

'On Malta's rock.' 



50 



THE -WORLD'S CONVENTION. 



Which onto all the winds of heaven 

The banners of the < Iross unrolled 1 
Not for iIh lo ! " 

Not Eor t be dull unconscious sod, 
\\ hich tells not by on ■ lingering Bism 

Thai there the nope of [srael trod ; — 
Bui for i bat tki th, for which alone 

In pilg] im eyes are sand ified 

The garden moss, the i ntain stone, 

Whereon his bolj sandals pressed, — 
The fountain which his lip hath Messed, — 
Whate'er hath touched his garment's hem 
At Bethany or Bethlehem, 

( »i Jordan's i i\ er side. 
For Freedom; in t be name of Him 

Who came to raise Earth's drooping poor, 
To break I be chain from c\ cry limb, 

The bolt from every prison door ! 
For th ise, o'er all th • earth hath passed 
An ever-deepening trumpet Mast, 
As if an angel's breath had lent 
Its vigor to the instrument. 

And Wales, from Snowden's mountain wall, 
Shall startle at that, thrilling call, 

As if she heard her hards again ; 
And Erin's " harp on Tara's wall" 

( live out its ancient strain. 
Mirthful and sweet, yet sad withal, — 

The melody which Erin loves, 
When o'er that harp, 'mid hursts of gladness 
And slogan cries and lyke-wake sadness, 

The hand of her O'Connell moves ! 
Scotland, from lake and tarn and rill, 
And mountain hold, and heathen hill, 

Mull catch and echo hack the note, 
As if sh ■ heard upon her air 
Once more her Cameronian's prayer 

And song of Freedom float. 
And cheering echoes shall reply 
From each remote dependency, 
Where Britain's mighty sway is known, 
In tropic sea or frozen zone; 
Where'er her sunset flag is furling. 
Or morning gun-fire's smoke is curling ; 
From Indian Bengal's groves of palm 
And rosy fields and gales id' halm, 
Where Eastern pomp and power are rolled 
Through regal Ava's gates of gold ; 
And from the lakes and ancient woods 
And dim Canadian solitudes. 
Whence, sternly from her rocky throne, 
Queen of the North, Quebec looks down ; 
And I nun those bright and ransomed Isles 
Where all unwonted Freedom smiles, 
And the dark laborer still retains 
The scar of slavery's broken chains ! 

From the hoar Alps, which sentinel 
The gateways of the land of Tell, 

morning's keen and earliest glance 
On Jura's rocky wall is thrown. 
'.;■ I from the olive bowers of France 

And vine groves garlanding the Rhone, — 
" Friends of the Blacks " as true and tried 

As those who stood by Oge's side. 

And heard the Haytien's tale of wrong, 

Shall gather at that summons strong, — 
Broglie, Passy, and him whose song 
Breathed over Syria's holy sod, 
And in the paths which Jesus trod, 
And murmured midst the hills which hem 
< Irownless and sad Jerusalem, 

Hath echoes whereso'er the tone 

< )f Israel's prophet-lyre is known. 

Still let them come,— from Quito's walls, 

A ml from the ( )i inoco's t ide, 
I' Lima's luca-liauuted halls, 



From Santa TV and Yucatan, — 

Abu who b\ swart Guerrero's side 
Proclaimed the deathless rights of .man. 

Broke e\ erj bond and fetter oil', 

And hailed in everj sable serf 
A fi ee ■■> rid brot her Mexican ! 
Chiefs who across lie' A ud( ib' chain 

Have followed freedom's flowing pennon, 
And seen 011 Junin's fearful plain, 
Glare o'er the broken ranks of Spain 

The tire burst of Bolivar's cannon ! 
And Hayti, from her mountain land. 

Shall sjend the sons of those who hurled 
Defiance from her blazing strand. 
The war-gage from her Lotion's hand, 

Alone against a hostile world. 

Nor all unmindful, thou, the while, 
Land of the dark and mystic Nile ! — 

Thy Moslem mercy yet may shame 

All tyrants of a Christian name, — 
When in the shade of Gizeh's pile, 
Or, where from Abyssinian hills 

El < S-erek's upper fountain fills, 
Or where from Mountains of the .Moon 
El Abiad bears his watery boon. 
Where'er thy lotus blossoms swim 

Within their ancient hallowed waters, — 
Where'er is heard the Coptic hymn, 

Or song of Nubia's sable daughters, — 
The curse of SLAVERY and the crime, 
Thy bequest from remotest time, 
At thy dark Mehemet's decree 
Forevermore shall pass from thee; 

And chains forsake each captive's limb 
Of all those tidies, whose hills around 
Have echoed back the cymbal sound 

And victor horn of Ibrahim. 

And thou whose glory and whose crime 
To earth's remotest bound and clime, 
In mingled tones of awe and scorn, 
The echoes of a world have borne, 
My country ! glorious at thy birth, 
A day-star Hashing brightly forth, — 

The herald-sign of Freedom's dawn ! 
< ), who could dream that saw thee then, 

And watched thy rising from afar, 
That vapors from oppression's fen 

Would cloud the upward tending star? 
Or, that earth's tyrant powers, which heard, 

Awe-struck, the shout which hailed thy dawn- 
ing, 
Would rise so soon, prince, peer, and king. 
To mock thee with their welcoming, 
Like Hades when her thrones were stirred 

To greet the down-cast Star of Morning ! 
"■ Aha ! and art thou fallen thus ? 
Art tiioi: become asone of us? " 

Land of my fathers! — there will stand, 
Amidst that world-assembled band, 
Those owning thy maternal claim 
Ohweakened by thy crime and shame, — 
The sad reprovers of thy wrong, — 
The children thou hast spurned so long. 
Still with affection's fundi st yearning 
To their unnatural mother turning. 
No traitors they ! — but tried and leal, 
Whose own is but thy general weal, 
Still blending with the patriot's zeal 
The Christian's love for human kind, 
To caste and climate unconfined. 

A holy gathering ! — peaceful all : 
No threat of war, — no savage call 

For vengeance on an erring brother ! 
Hut in their stead the godlike' plan 
To teach t be brol berhood of man 

To love and reverence one another, 



NEW HAMPSHIRE.— THE NEW YEAR. 



:,1 



As sharers of a common blood, 
The children of a common < lod ! — 
Yri, e\ rii at its lightest word, 
Shall Slavery's darkesl depths be stin-.-il : 
Spain, watching from her Mum's keep 
Her slave-ships traversing the deep, 
And Rio, in her strength and pride, 
Lifting, along her mountain side, 
llrr snowy battlements and towers, — 
Her lemon-groves and bropic bowers, 
With bitter hate and sullen E 
Its freedom-gn ing voice shall hear ; 
And win re mj i ountry's flag is flowing, 
On breezes from Mount Vernon blowing 

Above the Nation's council-halls, 
Where Freedom's praise is loud and long, 

While close beneath the outward wails 
The driver plies his reeking thong, — 

The hammer of the man-thief falls, 
O'er hypocritic cheek and brow 
The crimson flush of shame shall glow : 
And all who for their native land 
Are pledging life and heart and hand, — 
Worn watchers o'er her changing weal, 
Who for her tarnished honor feel, — 
Through cottage door and council-hall 
Shall thunder an awakening call. 
The pen along its page shall burn 
With all intolerable scorn, — 
An eloquent rebuke shall go 
On all the winds that Southward blow, — 
From priestly lips, now sealed and dumb, 
Warning and dread appeal shall come. 
Like those which Israel heard from him, 
Tiie Prophet of the Cherubim, — 
Or those which sad Bsaias hurled 
Against a sin-accursed world ! 
Its wizard leaves the Press shall fling 
Unceasing from its iron wing, 
With charact srs inscribed thereon, 

As fearful in the despot's hall 
As to the pomp of Babylon 

The tire-sign on the palace wall ! 
And, from her dark iniquities, 
Methinks I see my country ris3 : 
Not challenging the nations round 

To not ' Inr tardy justice done, — 
Her captives from their chains unbound, 

Her prisons opening to the sun : — ■ 
But tearfully her arms extending 
Over the poor and unoffending ; 

Her regal emblem now no longer 
A bird of prey, with talons reeking, 
Above the dying captive shrieking, 
But, spreading out her ample wing, — 
A broad, impartial covering, — 

The weaker sheltered by the stronj 
O, then to Faith's anointed i 

The promised token shall be given ; 
And on a nation's sacrifice, 
Atoning for the sin of years, 
And wet with penitential tears, — ■ 

The tire shall fall from Heaven ! 
1839. 



To all his biddings, from her mountain ranges, 
New Hampshire thunders an indignant .No ! 

Who is it now despairs ? O, faint of heart. 
Look upward to t hose Nbri hern mountains cold, 
Flouted b\ Freedom's victor flag unrolled, 

And gather stri Dgth to bear a manlier part! * 

All is not lost. Theangel of <iod's blessing 
Encamps with Freedom on the field of tight, ; 

Still to her banner, day by day, are pressing, 
Unlooked lor allies, striking for the right ! 

Courage, then, Northern hearts. — Be firm, be 
true : 

What one brave State hath done, can ye not also 
do? 



XEW HAMPSHIRE. 

1845. 

Odd bless Xew Hampshire! — from her granite 

peaks 
One ■ more tile voice of Stark and Langdon speaks. 
The long-bound vassal ol bhe exulting South 

!' ir very shame her self-forged chain has bro 
ken, — 
Torn the black seal of slavery from her mouth, 

And in the clear tones of ber old time spoken ! 
O, all undreamed-of, all unhoped-for cine 

The tyrant's ally proves his sternest foe ; 



THE NEW YE A 11: 

ADDRESSED TO THE PATRONS OF TIIE PENNSYL- 
VANIA FREEMAN. 

The wave is breaking on the shore, — 
The echo fading from the chime, — 

Again the shadow moveth o'er 
The dial-plate of time! 

O, seer-seen Angel ! waiting now 
With weary feet on sea and shore, 

Impatient for the last dread vow- 
That time shall be no more ! 

Once more across thy sleepless eye 
The semblance of a smile has passed : 

The year departing leaves more nigh 
Time's fearfullest and last. 

O, in that dying year hath been 
The sum of all since time began, — 

The birth and death, the joy and pain, 
Of Nature and of Man. 

Spring, with her change of sun and shower, 
And streams released from Winter's chain, 

And bursting bud, and opening flower, 
And greenly growing grain ; 

And Summer's shade, and sunshine warm, 
And rainbows o'er her hill-tops bowed, 

And voices in her rising storm, — 
God speaking from his cloud ! — 

And Autumn's fruits and clustering sheaves, 
And soft, warm days of golden light, 

The glory of her forest leaves, 
And harvest-moon at night ; 

And Winter with her leafless grove, 

And prisoned stream, and drifting snow, 

The brilliance of her heaven above 
And of her earth below : — 

And man, — in whom an angel's mind 
With earth's low instincts finds abode, — 

The highest of the links which bind 
Brute nature to her Cod ; 

His infant eye hath seen the light, 

His childhood's merriest laughter rung, 

And active sports to manlier might 
The nerves of boyhood strung ! 

And quiet love, and passion's fires, 

Have soothed or burned in manhood's breast, 
And lofty aims and low desires 

By turns disturbed his rest. 

The wailing of the newly-born 

Has mingled with the funeral knell; 

And o'er the dying's ear has gone 
The merry marriage-bell. 



THE NEW YEAR.— MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA. 



And Wealth has filled his halls w ith mirth, 
While Want, in manj a humble shed, 

Toiled, shivi i cheerless hearth, 

The livi long oighl Eor bread. 

And worse than all,— the human slave,— 
The sporl of Lust, and pride, and i sot □ ' 

Plucked ofF the crown bis Maker gave, — 
His regal manhood gone ! 

(), still, my country ! o'er thy plains, 
Blackened with slavery's blight and ban. 

Thai human chattel drags bis chains, — 
An uncreated man ! 

And still, where'er to sun and breeze, 
My country, is thy flag unrolled, 

With scorn, the gazing stranger sits 
A stain on every fold. 

O, tear the gorg ious emblem down ! 

I' gathers scorn from every eye, 
And despots smile and good men frown 

Whene'er it passi 

Shame ! shame ! its starry splendors glow 

Above the slaver's loathsome jail, — 

Its Eolds are ruffling even now 
His crimson flag of sale. 

Still round our country's proudest hall 
The trade in human flesh is driven, 

And at each careless hammer-fall 
A human heart is riven. 

And this, too, sanctioned by the men 
Vested with power to shield the right, 

And throw each vile and robber den 
Wide open to the light. 

Yet, shame upon them ! — there they sit, 
Men of the North, subdued anil still; 

Meek, pliant poltroons, only tit 
To work a, master's will. 

Sold,— bargained off for Southern votes, — 
A passive herd of Northern mules, 

Just braying through their purchased throats 
Whate'er their owner rules. 

And he, 3 -"' — the basest of the base, 
The vilest of the vile, — whose name, 

Embalmed in infinite disgrace, 
Is deathless in its shame !— 

A tool, — to bolt the people's door 
Against the people clai ing there, 

An ass, — to tram] ile on their floor 
A people's right of prayer ! 

Nail id to his self-made gibbet fast, 

Self-pilloried to the public view, — 
A mark for every passing blast 

Of scorn to whistle through ; 

Th re let him hang, and hear the boast 
Of Southrons o'er their pliant tool, — 

A new Stylites on his post, 
" Sacred to ridicule ! " 

Look we at home ! — our noble hall, 
To Freedom's holy purpose given, 

Now rears its black and ruined wall, 
Beneath the wintry heaven, — 

Telling the story of its doom, — 
The fiendish mob, —the prostrate law, — 

The fiery jet through midnight's gloom, 
Our gazing thousands saw. 



Look to our State, — the poor man's right 
Torn from him : — and the sons of those 

Whose blood in Freedom's sternest tight 
Sprinkled the Jersey snows, 

Outlawed within the laud of lYnn, 
That Slavery's guilty fears might cease, 

And those whom (hid created men 
Toil on as brutes in peai e. 

Yet o'er the blackness of the storm 
A bow of promise bends on high. 

And gleams of sunshine, soft and warm, 
Break through our clouded sky. 

East, West, and North, the shout is heard, 
Of freemen rising for the right : 

Each valley hath its rallying word, — 
Each hill its signal light. 

O'er Massachusetts' rocks of gray, 

The strengthening light of freedom shines, 

Rhode Island's Narragansett Hay, — 
And Vermont's snow-hung pines ! 

From Hudson's frowning palisades 

To Alleghany's laureiled crest, 
O'er lakes and prairies, streams and glades, 

It shines upon the West. 

Speed on the light to those who dwell 
In Slavery's laud of woe and sin, 

And through the blackness of that hell, 
Let Heaven's own light break in. 

So shall the Southern conscience quake 
Before that light poured full and strong, 

So shall the Southern heart, awake 
To all the bondman's wrong. 

And from that rich and sunny land 
The song of grateful millions rise, 

Like that of Israel's ransomed band 
Beneath Arabia's skies : 

And all who now are bound beneath 
Our banner's shade, our eagle's wing, 

From Slavery's night of moral death 
To light and life shall spring. 

Broken the bondman's chain, and gone 
The master's guilt, and hate, and fear, 

And unto both alike shall dawn 
A New and Happy Year. 
1839. 



MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA. 

[Written on reading an account of the proceedings of 
the citizens el' Norfolk. Va., in reference to Gkorge 
i >.<;:i r, the alleged fugitive slave, the result oi whose 
,,, rin Ma achnsetts will probablj be similar to that of 
the negro Komehset in England, in 1772.] 

The blast from Freedom's Nortjicrn hills, upon 

its Southern way, 
Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts 

Bay:— 

No word of haughty challenging, nor battle bugle's 
peal. 

Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of 
horsemen's steel. 

No t rains of deep-mouthed cannon along our high- 
way s go, — 
Around our silent arsenals untrodden hes the 



MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA. 



53 



And to the land-breeze of our ports, upon their 

errands Ear, 
A thousand sails of commerce swell, but none are 

spread for war. 

We hear thy threats, Virginia ! thy stormy words 

and high, 
Swell harshly on the Southern winds which melt 

.•(long our sky ; 
Yet, not one brown, hard hand foregoes its honest 

labor lure, 
No hewer of our mountain oaks suspends his axe 

in 1'ear. 

Wild are the waves which lash the reefs along St. 

< ieorge's bank, — 
Cold on the shore of Labrador the fog lies white 

and dank ; 
Through storm, and wave, and blinding mist, 

sto it are the hearts which man 
The fishing-smacks of Marblehead, the sea-boats 

of Cape Ann. 

The cold north light and wintry sun glare on their 
icy forms, 

Bent grimly o'er their straining linos or wrestling 

with the storms ; 
Free as the winds they drive. before, rough as the 

waves they roam, 
They laugh to scorn the slaver's threat against 

their rocky home. 

What means the Old Dominion? Hath she' for- 
got the day 

When o'er her conquered valleys swept the 
Briton's steel array ? 

How side by side, with sons of hers, the M i isa- 
chusetts ni' n 

Encountered Tarleton's charge of tire, and stout 
Cornwallis, then ? 

Forgets she how the Bay State, inanswer to the 
call 

<>i' her old Eouse of Burgesses, spoke out from 
Faneuil Hall? 

When, echoing back her Henry's cry, came puls- 
ing on each breath 

Of Northern winds, the thrilling sounds of 
" Liberty or Death ! " 

Wlia: asks the Old Dominion? If now her sons 

have proved 
False to their fathers' memory, — false to the faith 

loved, 
11' she can scoff at Freedom, and its great charter 

spurn, 
Must we of Massachusetts from truth and duty 

turn ? 

We hunt your bondmen, flying from Slavery's 
ha fceful hell, — 

Our voices, at your bidding, take up the blood- 
hound's yell, — 

We gather, at your summons, above our fathers' 
-, es, 

From Freedom's holy altar-horns to tear your 
wretched slaves ! 

Thank God ! not yet so vilely can Massachusetts 

bow ; 
The spirit of her early time is with her even now ; 
Dream not because her Pilgrim blood moves slow 

and calm and cool, 
She thus can stoop her chainless neck, a sister's 

slave and tool ! 

All that a sister State should do, all that a free 

S t:i t - le.n 
band, and purse we proffer, as in our early 
day ; 



But that one dark loathsome burden ye must 

stagger with alone, 
And reap the bitter harvest which ye yourselves 

have sown ! 

Hold, while ye may, your struggling slaves, and 
burden God's fro 

With woman's shriek beneath the lash, and man- 
hood's wild despair ; 

Cling closer to the ''cleaving curee" that writes 
upon your plans 

The blasting of Almighty wrath against a land of 
chains. 

Still shame your gallant ancestry, the cavaliers of 

old, 
By watching round the shambles where human 

flesh is sold, — 
Gloat o'er the new-born child, and count his 

market value, when 
The maddened mother's cry of woe shall pierce 

the slaver's den ! 

Lower than plummet soundetb, sink the Virginia 
name ; 

Plant, if ye will, your fathers' graves with rankest 
weeds of shame ; 

Be, if ye will, the scandal of God's fair uni- 
verse, — 

We wash our hands forever of your sin and shame 
and curse. 

A voice from lips whereon the coal from Free- 
dom's shrine hath been. 

Thrilled, as but yesterday, the hearts of Berk- 
shire's mountain men : 

The echoes of that, solemn voice are sadly linger- 
ing still 

In all our sunny valleys, on every wind-swept hill. 

And when the prowling man-thief came hunting 

for his prey 
Beneath the very shadow of Bunker's shaft of 

How, through the fiee lips of the son, the father's 

warning spoke ; 
How, from its bonds of trade and sect, the Pilgrim 

city broke ! 

A hundred thousand right arms were lifted up on 
high,— 

A hundred thousand voices sent back their loud 
reply ; 

Through the thronged towns of Essex the start- 
ling summons rang. 

And up from bench and loom and wheel her 
young mechanics sprang ! 

The voice of free, broad Middlesex, — of thousands 
as of one, — 

The shaft of Bunker calling to that'of Lexing- 
ton, — 

From Norfolk's ancient villages, from Plymouth's 
rocky bound 

To where Nantucket feels the arms of ocean close 
her round ; — 

From rich and rural Worcester, where through 

the calm repose 
Of cultured vales and fringing woods the gentle 

Nashua Hows, 
To where Wachuset's wintry blasts the mountain 

larches stir, 
Swelled up to Heaven the thrilling cry of " God 

save Latimer ! " 



And sandy Barnstable rose up, wet with the salt 

sea spray, — 
Jristol sent her 
ragansett Bay ! 



sea spray, — 
And Bristol sent her answering shout down Nar- 



54 



THE RKLTO.— THE BRANDED HAND. 



Along the broad Connecticut old Hampden felt the 

thrill, 
And the cheer oi Hampshire's woodmen swept 

down from Holyoke Hill. 

The voice of Massachus tts! Of herfn 

and daughi 
Deep calling unto deep aloud, — the sound of 

many wa1 
Against the burden of thai voice what fcyranl 

pow< r shall stand ? 
No fetters in the Bay Stall ' No slavi upon her 

land! 

Look to it well, Virginians ! In calmness we 

have borne, 
In answer to our faith and trust, your insult and 

your scorn ; 
You've spurned our kindest counsels, — you've 

hunted for our lives, — 
And shaken round our hearths and homes your 

manacles and gyves ! 

We wage no war, — Ave lift no arm, — we fling no 

torch within 
The fire-damps of the quaking mine beneath your 

soil of sin ; 
We leave \ e with your bondmen, to wrestle, while 

ye can, 
With the strong upward tendencies and godlike 

soul of man ! 

But for us and for our children, the vow which 

we have given 
For freedom and humanity is registered in 

heaven ; 
No slave-hunt in our borders,— no pirate on our 

strand ' 
No fetters in the Bay Stale, — no slave upon our 

land .' 



THE RELIC. 

[Pennsylvania Hall, dedicated to Free Discussion 
and the cause of human liberty, was destroyed by a mob 
in 1838. The following was written on receiving a cane 
wrought from a fragment of the wood-work which the 
lire had spared.] 

Token of friendship true and tried, 
Prom one whose fiery heart of youth 

'With mine has beaten, side by side, 
For Liberty and Truth ; 

With honest pride the gift I take, 

And prize it for the giver's sake. 

But not alone because it tells 
Of generous hand and heart sincere; 

Around that gift of friendship dwells 
A memory doubly dear, — 

Earth's noblest aim, — man's holiest thought, 

With that memorial frail inwrought ! 

Pure thoughts and sweet, like flowers unfold, 
And precious memories round it cling, 

Even as the Prophet's rod of old 
In beauty blossoming : 

Ami buds of feeling pure and good 

Spring from its cold unconscious wood. 

Relic of freedom's shrine ! a brand 
Plucked from its burning ! — let it be 

Dear as a jewel from the hand 
Of a fist friend t i lie ' 

Flowei of a, perish d garland left, 

( M' life and beauty unbi 

<). if the young enthusiast bears, 

< I er weary waste and sea, the stone 

Which crumbled from the Forum's stairs, 
Or round the Parthenon ; 



Or olive bough from some wild tree 
I I ung over old Therinop\ he : 

li Leaflets from sonic hero's tomb, 
Or moss-wreath torn from ruins hoary, — 

Or laded flowers whose sisters bloom 
On fields renowned in story, — 

Or fragment from the Alhambra's crest, 

Or the gray rock by I >ruids blessed ; 

Sad Erin's shamrock greenly growing 
Where freedom led her stalwart kern, 

Or Scotia's "rough bur thistle " blowing 
On Bruce's Bannockburn. — 

Or Runnymede's wild English rose, 

Or lichen plucked from Sempach's snows! — 

II' it be true that things like these 

To heart and eye bright visions bring. 

Shall not far holier memories 
To this memorial cling . 

Which needs no mellowing mist of time 

To hide the crimson stains of crime ! 

Wreck of a temple, unprofaned, — 

Of courts where Peace with freedom trod, 
Lifting on high, with hands unstained, 

Thanksgiving unto < Sod ; 
Where Mercy's voice of love was pleading 
for human hearts in bondage bleeding ! — 

Where, midst the sound of rushing feet 
And curses on the night-air flung, 

That pleading voice rose calm and sweet 
from woman's earnest tongue ; 

And ltiot turned his scowling glance. 

Awed, from her tranquil countenance ! 

That temple now in ruin lies ! — 
The tire-stain on its shattered wall, 

And open to the changing skies 
Its black and roofless hall, 

It stands before a nation's sight, 

A gravestone over buried Right ! 

But from that ruin, as of old, 

The fire-scorched stones themselves are crying, 
And from their ashes white and cold 

Its timbers are replying ! 
A voice winch slavery cannot kill 
Speaks from the crumbling arches still ! 

And even this relic from thy shrine, 

O holy freedom ! hath to me 
A potent power, a voice and sign 

To testify of thee; 
And, grasping it, methinks I feel 
A deeper faith, a stronger zeal. 

And not unlike that mystic roil, 

Of old stretched o'er the Egyptian wave, 

Which opened, in the strength id' (bid, 
A pathway for the slave, 

It yet may point the bondman's way, 

Alid turn the spoiler from his prey. 



THE BRANDED HAND. 

1840. 

Welcome home again, brave seaman ! with thy 

thoughtful Brow and gray. 
And the old heroic spirit of our earlier, better 

day, — 
With that front of calm endurance, on whose 

steady nerve in vain 
Pressed the' iron of the prison, smote the fiery 

shafts of pain ! 



THE BRANDED HAND.— TEXAS. 



55 



Is the tyrant's brand upon thee '? Did the brutal 

cravens aim 
To make God's truth thy falsehood, his holiest 

work thy shame ? 
When, all blood-quenched, from the torture the 

iron was withdrawn, 
Bow laughed their evil angel the baffled fools to 

scorn ! 

'Liny change to wrong the duty which God hath 

writ ten out 
On the great heart of humanity, too legible for 

doubt ! 
Z7»y, the loathsome moral lepers, blotched from 

footsole up to crown, 
Give to shame what God hath given unto honor 
and renown ! 

Why, that brand is highest honor ! — than its 
traces never yet 

Upon old armorial hatchments was a prouder bla- 
zon set ; 

And thy unburn generations, as they tread our 
rocky strand. 

Shall tell with pride the story of their father's 

BRANDED HAND ! 

As the Templar home was welcome, bearing back 

from Syrian wars 
The scars of Arab lances and of Paynim scymi- 

tars, 
The pallor of the prison, and the shackle's crim- 

son span. 
So we meet thee, so we greet thee, truest friend 

of God and man. 

He suffered for the ransom of the dear Redeemer's J 

gra\ e, 
Thou for his living presence in the bound and 

bleeding sla\ e ; 
He for a soil no longer by the feet of angels trod, 
Thou for the true Sheehinah, the present home 

of God ! 

For, while the jurist, sitting with the slave-whip 

o'er him swung, 
From the tortured truths of freedom the lie of 

sla\ ery wrung, 
And the solemn priest to Moloch, on each God- | 

deserted shrine, 
Broke the bondman's heart for bread, poured the 

bondman's blood for wine, — 

While the multitude in blindness to a far-off Sav- 
iour knelt, 

And spurned, the while, the temple where a pres- 
ent Saviour dwelt ; 

Thou beheld'st him in the task-field, in the pris- 
on shadows dim, 

And thy merry to the bondman, it was mercy ■ 
unto him ! 

In thy lone and long night-watches, sky above i 
and wave below, 

Thou didst learn a higher wisdom than the bab- 
bling schoolmen know ; 

< oids stars and silence taught thee, as his angels i 
only can, 

That the one sole sacred thing beneath the cope 
of heaven is Man ! 

That he who treads profanely on the scrolls of law 
and creed, 

In the depth of God's great goodness may find mer- 
cy in his need ; 

But woe to him who crushes the .soil with chain 
and rod, 

And herds with lower natures the awful form of 
God! 



Then lift that manly right-hand, bold ploughman 

of the wave ! 
Its branded palm shall prophesy, " Salvation to 

the Slave ! '•' 
Hold up its lire-wrought language, that whoso 

reads may feel 
His heart swell strong within him, his sinews 

change to steel. 

Hold it up before our sunshine, up against our 

Northern air, — 
Ho ! men of Massachusetts, for the love of God, 

look there ! 
Take it henceforth for your standard, like the 

Bruce's heart of yore, 
In the dark strife closing round ye, let that hand 

be seen before ! 

And the tyrants of the slave-land shall tremble at 
that sign. 

When it points its finger Southward along the Pu- 
ritan line : 

Woe to the State-gorged leeches and the Church's 
locust band. 

When they look from slavery's ramparts on the 
coming of that hand ! 



TEXAS. 

VOICE OF NEW ENGLAND. 

Up the hillside, down the glen, 
Rouse the sleeping citizen ; 
Summon out the might of men ! 

Like a lion growling low, — 
Like a night-storm rising slow, — 
Like the tread of unseen foe, — 

It is coming, — it is nigh ! 

Stand your homes and altars by ; 

On your own free thresholds die. 

Clang the bells in all your spires , 
Oil the gray hills of your sires 
Fling to heaven your signal-fires. 

From Wachuset, lone and bleak, 

Unto Berkshire's tallest peak, 

Let the flame-tongued heralds speak 

O, for God and duty stand, 
Heart to heart and hand to hand, 
Round the old graves of the land. 

Whoso shrinks or falters now, 
Whoso to the yoke would bow. 
Brand the craven on his brow ! 

Freedom's soil hath only place 
For a free and fearless race, — 
None for traitors false and base. 

Perish party, — perish clan ; 
Strike together while ye can, 
Like the arm of one strong man. 

Like that angel's voice sublime 
Heard above a world of crime, 
Crying of the end of time, — 

With one heart and with one mouth, 
Let the North unto the South 
Speak the word befitting both : 

" What though Issachar be strong ! 
Ye may load his back with wrong 
Overmuch and over long : 



TO FANEUIL HALL— TO MASSACHUSETTS. 



" Patience with her cup o'errnn, 
With her wearj thread outspun, 
Murmurs bhaf her work i- done. 

■ Make our Union-bond a • h 
Weak as bow in Fr< edom's Btrain 
Link by link shall snap in twain. 

"Vainly shall your Band wrought rope 
Bind the starry cluster up, 
Shattered over heaven's blue cope ! 

"Give us bright though broken rays, 
I, , her than eternal ha 
Clouding o'er the lull orbed blaze. 

"Take your land of sun and bloom 5 

Only leave to Freedom room 

For her plough, and forge, and loom; 

"Take your slavery-blackened vales ■* 
Leave us but our own free gales, 
Blowing on our thousand sails. 

"Boldly, or with treacherous art, 
Strike the blood-wrought chain apart; 
Break the Union's mighty heart; 

" Work the ruin, if ye will ; 
Pluck upon your heads an ill 
Which shall grow and deepen still. 

"With your bondman's right arm bare, 
With his heart of black despair, 
Stand alone, it si and ye dare ! 

"Onward with your fell design ; 
Dig the gulf and draw the line . 
Fire beneath your feet the mine: 

"Deeply, when the wide abyss 
Yawns between your land and this, 
Shall ye feel your helplessness. 

" By the hearth, and in the bed, 
Shaken by a look or tread. 
Ye shall own a guilty dread. 

" And the curse of unpaid toil, 
Downward through your generous soil 
Like a lire shall burn and spoil. 

" Our bleak hills shall bud and blow, 
Vines our rocks shall overgrow, 
Plenty in our valleys flow ; — 

"And when vengeance clouds your skies 
Hither shall ye turn your eyes, 
As the lost on Paradise ! 

" We but ask our rocky strand, 
Freedom's true and brother band, 
Freedom's strong and honest hand, — 

" Valleys by the slave untrod, 
And the Pilgrim's mountain sod, 
Blessed of our fathers' < rod ! " 



TO FAN I'd LL HALL. 

|s||. 

Men! — if manhood still ye claim, 
If the Northern pulse can thrill, 

Boused by wrong or stung by shame, 
Freely, strongly still, — 

; sounds of traffic die : 

Shut the mill-sale, — leave the stall, 



Fling the axe and hammer by, — 
Throng to Faneuil Hall ! 

Wrongs which Ereemen never brooked, — 

Dangers grim and fierce as they. 
Which, like couching' lions, looked 

On your fathers' way, — 
These your instant zeal demand, 

Shaking with their earthquake-call 
I i\ ei , rood of Pilgrim land, 

Ho, to Faneuil Hall! 

From your capes and sandy bars, — 

From your mount lin-ridges cold, 
Through whose pines the westering stars 

Stoop their crowns of gold, — 
Come., and with your footsteps wake 

Echoes from that holy wall; 
One.- again, lor Freedom's sake, 

Lock your fathers' hall! 

Up, and tread beneath your feet 

Every cord by party spun : 
Let your hearts together heat 

As the heart of one. 
Banks and tariffs, stocks and trade, 

Let them rise or let them fall : 
Freedom asks your common aid, — 

Up, to Faneuil Hall ! 

Up, and let each voice that speaks 

Ring from thence to Southern plains, 
Sharply as the blow which breaks 

Prison-bolts and chains ! 
Speak as well becomes the free : 

Dreaded more than steel or ball, 
Shall your calmest utterance be, 

Heard from Faneuil Hall ! 

Have they wronged us V Let. us then 

Render back nor threats nor prayers ; 
Have they chained our free-born men V 

Let us unchain theirs! 
Up, your banner hails the van, 

Blazoned, " Liberty for all ! " 
Finish what your sues began ! 

Up, to Faneuil Hall ! 



TO MASSACHUSETTS. 
1844. 

What though around thee blazes 

No fiery rallying sign V 
From all thy own high places, 

Give heaven the light of thine ! 
What though unthrilled, unmoving, 

The statesman stand apart, 
And conies no warm approving 

From Mammon's crowded mart? 

Still, let the land be shaken 

By a summons of thine own ! 
By all save truth forsaken, 

Whj , stand with that alone ! 
Sin ink not from strife unequal ! 

With the best is always hope ; 
Ami ever m the sequel 

God holds the right side up ! 

Hut when, with thine uniting, 

Come voices long and loud, 
Ami far-off hills are writing 

Thy tin- words on the cloud ; 
When from Penobscot's fountains 

A deep reponse is heard, 
And across the Western mountains 

Rolls back thy rallying word ; 



THE PINE-TREE.— LINES. 



57 



Shall thy line of battle falter, 

With its allies just in view r 
O, by hearth and holy altar, 

My fatherland, be true ! 
Fling abroad thy senilis of Freedom ! 

Speed them onward far and fast ! 
Over lull and valley speed them, 

Like the sibyl's on the blast ! 

Lo ! the Empire State is shaking 

The shackles from her hand ; 
With the rugged North is waking 

The level sunset land ! 
On they come, — the free battalions ! 

East and West and North they come, 
And the heart-beat of the millions 

Is the beat of Freedom's drum. 

" To the tyrant's plot no favor ! 

No heed to place-fed knaves ! 
Bar and bolt the door forever 

Against the land of slaves ! " 
Hear it, mother Earth, and hear it, 

The Heavens above us spread ! 
The land is roused, — its spirit 

Was sleeping, but not dead ! 



O my God ! for one right worthy to lilt up her 

rusted shield, 
And to plant again the Pine-Trec in her banner's 

tattered laid ! 



THE PINE-TREE. 
1846. 

Lift again the stately emblem on the Bay State's 
rusted shield, 

Give to Northern winds the Pine-Tree on our ban- 
ner's tattered field. 

Sons of men who sat in council with their Bibles 
round the board, 

Answering England's royal missive with a firm, 

"Tilts SAITH THE LOKD ! " 

Rise again for home and freedom ! — set the 

battle in array ! — 
What the fathers did of old time we their sons 

must do to-day. 

Tell us not of banks and tariffs, — cease your pal- 
try pedler cries, — 

Shall the good Stare sink her honor that your 
gambling sWcks may rise ? 

Would ye barter man for cotton ? — That your 
gains may sum up higher, 

Must we kiss the feet of Moloch, pass our chil- 
dren through the tiro ? 

Is the dollar only real V — God and truth and right 
a dream ? 

Weighed against your lying ledgers must our 
manhood kick the beam ? 

O my God ! — for that free spirit, which of old in 
Boston town 

Smote the Province House with terror, struck the 
crest of Andres clown I — 

For another strong-voiced Adams in the city's 
streets to cry, 

" Up for God ami .Massachusetts ! — Set your feet 
on Mammon's lie ! 

Perish banks and perish traffic, — spin your cot- 
ton's latest pound, — 

But in Heaven's name keep your honor, — keep 
the heart o' the Bay State sound ! " 

Where's the max for Massachusetts ? — Where's 

the voice to speak her free ? — 
Where's the hand to light up bonfires from her 

mountains to the sea ? 
Beats her Pilgrim pulse no longer? — Sits she 

dumb in her despair? — 
Has she none to break the silence ? — Has she none 

to do and dare ? 



LINES, 



SUGGESTED BY V VISIT TO TUT. CITY OF WASHING- 
TON, IN TIIK P.'TII MONTH OF 1845. 

With a cold and wintry noon-light, 
On its roofs and steeples shed, 
hadows weaving with the sunlight 
From the gray sky overhead, 
Broadly, vaguely, all around me, lies the half- 
built town outspread. 

Through this broad street, restless ever, 

Ebbs and Hows a human tide, 
Wave on wave a living river ; 

Wealth and fcishion side by side ; 
Toiler, idler, slave and master, in the same quick 
current glide. 

Underneath yon dome, whose coping 

Springs above them, vast and tall, 
Grave men in the dust are groping 
For the largess, base and small, 
Which the hand of Power is scattering, crumbs 
which from its table fall. 

Base of heart ! They vilely barter 
Honor's wealth for party's place: 
Step by step on Freedom's charter 
Leaving footprints of disgrace; 
For to-day's poor pittance turning from the great 
hope of their race. 

Yet, where festal lamps are throwing 

Glory round the dancer's hair. 
Gold-tressed, like an angel's, flowing 
Backward on the sunset air ; 
And the low quick pulse of music beats its meas- 
ure sweet and rare : 

There to-night shall woman's glances, 

Star-like, welcome give to them, 
Fawning fools with shy advances 
Seek to touch their garments' hem. 
With the tongue of flattery glozing deeds which 
God and Truth condemn. 

From this glittering lie my r vision 
Takes a broader, sadder range, 
Full before me have arisen 

Other pictures dark and strange ; 
From the parlor to the prison must the scene and 
witness change. 

Hark! the heavy gate is swinging 

On its hinges, harsh and slow ; 
One pale prison lamp is Hinging 
On a fearful group below 
Such a light as leaves to terror whatsoe'er it does 
not show. 

Pitying God !— Is that a woman 

On whose wrist the shackles clash? 
Is that shriek she utters human. 
Underneath the stinging lash ? 
Are they men whose eyes of madness from that 
sad procession flash V 

Still the dance goes gayly onward ! 
What is it to Wealth and Pride 
That without the stars are looking 
On a scene which earth should hide ? 
That the slavk-siiii' lies in waiting, rocking on 
Potomac's tide ! 



58 



LINES. 



Vainly to that mean Ambition 
Which, upon a rival's fall, 

W'iinls above its old o lil ion, 

\Y it h a reptile's slimy crawl, 
Shall i in' pl( a rrow, shall tin-slave 

aguish oall 

Vainh to the ohild of Fashion, 

1 1 1 \ ing to ideal woe 
» rraoeful luxury of compassion, 
Shall t he b! ricken mourner go ; 
Hateful seems the earnest Borrow, beautiful the 
hollow show ! 

Nay, ni\ w ords are all too sweeping : 

I m i liis crow ded human mart, 
Peeling ii uo1 dead, but sleeping ; 
Man's Btrong will and womans heart, 
In the coming strife for Freedom, yet shall bear 
i heir generous part. 

Ami from yonder sunny valleys, 
Southward in the distance lust, 
l'i eedom \ el shall summon allies 
\\ hi i hier than I he Nor! Ii ran boast, 
With the Evil by their hetirth stones grappling at 
severer cost. 

Now, t he soul alone is willing : 

Faint Uir heart and weak the knee ; 
And as 3 el no lip is thrilling 
With the might] words, "Be Free!" 
Tarrieth long the land's Good Angel, but his ad- 
vent is to be ! 

Meanv hile, turning from I he revel 

To t he pi ison cell mj sight, 
For intenser hate of evil, 
Km a keener sense of right, 
Shaking off thj dust., 1 thank Mar, City of the 
Slaves, to nigh! ' 

" To thy duly UOW and ever ! 

Dream no more of rest or stay ; 
Give to Freedom's great endeavor 

Sill hou ari and has! Iii day " : — 

Thus, above the city's murmur, saitha Voice, or 

sr, -ins to saj . 

Ye w it h heart and vision gifted 
To discern and love the right, 
Whose worn faces have been lifted 
To 1 he slow l\ •■ i" ... hi 

Where E Freedom's Bum i ae drifted slowly back 

the murk of night !— - 

Ye who through long years of trial 
Still have held your purpose last, 
While a lengthening shade the dial 
From the westering sunshine east, 
And ni hope each hour's denial seemed an echo of 
the la 

O my I Tot hers ; o my Bisters ! 

Would to God I hat J e were near, 

< ei in", with me down the \ istas 

< >f a sorrow strange and drear ; 

Would to God that ye were listeners to the Voice 

I 61 111 tii hear ! 

With the torm above us driving, 

SS'ith the false earth mined below, — 
W'h'i shall marvel if thus si 1 

S\'e ha\ e CI id as foe ; 

Onto one another giving in the darkness blow for 
blow. 

Well it may lie that our natures 

Have grown sterner and mote hard, 



And the freshness of their features 

Somen hat harsh and bal tie scarred, 

And their harmonies of feeling overtasked and 
rudely jai red 

Be it so. It. should not swerve us 
l'i urn a purpose 1 rue and brave ; 
I >ea rer Freedom's rugged 1 en ice 
Than the pastime 0! the Blave ; 
Better is the storm above it than the quiet of the 
grave. 

Let us then, uniting, burj 

All our idle feuds in dust., 
And to fnl ure conflicts carry 
Mutual faith and common trust ; 
Always he who most forgiveth in his brother 1 
most just. 

From the eternal shadow rounding 

All our sun and starlight hen , 

S 1. ices of our lost, ones sounding 

Bids us lie of heart and elieei , 
Through the silence, down the spaces, fulling on 
t he inward eat. 

Know we not our dead are looking 

Downward with a. sad surprise, 

All our st riie ni' words rebuking 

With their mild and lo\ ing eyes V 

Shall we grieve the holy angels ? Shall we cloud 

I hen Messed skies V 

Lei us draw their mantles o'er us 
Which have fallen in our way ; 
Let us Ao the work before US, 

< 'heei ly, bravelj , while we may, 
Ere l he long night silence cometh, and with us it 

is not. dr. ' 



LINES, 



FROM \ 1 ill ri: I" \ 1 in M. CLERICAL FRIEND. 

A strengtb Thy service cannot t ire, 
s faith which doubl can never dim, — 

A heart of hoe, a lip ol tire, — 

< ) Freedom's God ! be thou to him ! 

Speak through him words of power and fear, 
As through thy prophet bards of old, 

And let a scornful people hear 
Once more thj Sinai thunders rolled. 

For lying lips thy blessing seek. 

And hands of blood are raised to Thee, 
And mi thy children, crushed and weak, 

The oppressor plants his kneeling knee. 

Let then, ( ) < led ' thy servant dare 
Thy I rut h in all its pow er to tell. 
Unmask the priestly thieves, and tear 

The Bible from the grasp of hell ! 

From hollow rile and narrow span 
( >f law and sect by Thee released, 

(), teach him that the Christian man 
Is holier than the Jewish priest. 

Chase back the shadows, gray and old, 
Of the dead ages, from his way, 

And let his hopeful eyes behold 
The dawn of thy millennial day; — 

Thai day when fettered limb and mind 
Shall know the truth which maketh free, 

And he alone who loves his kind 
Shall, childlike, claim the love of Thee ! 



YORKTOWN. —LINES. 



59 



YORKTOWV 

Prow STorktown's ruins, ranked and still, 
Two lines stretch Ear o'er vale and hill: 
Who curbs his steed at head of one? 
Hark! the low murmur : Washington! 
Who bends his keen, approving glance 
\\ here down i he goi geous line o± I • 
Shine knightly star and plume of snow ? 
Thou too art victor, Rochambeau ! 

The earth which bears this calm array 
Shook with the war charge \ ester daj . 
Ploughed (hep with hurrj Lng hoof and wheel, 
Shot sown ami bladed thick with steel; 
October's clear and noonday sun 
Paled ill the breath smoke of the gun, 
And down night's double blackness fell. 
Like a dropped star, the blazing shell. 

Now all is hushed : the gleaming lines 
Stand moveless as the neighboring pines ; 
While through them, sullen, grim, and slow, 
The conquered hosts of England go : 
O'Hara's brow belies his dress, 
( ray Tarleton's I roop rides bannerless: 

Shout, from thy tired and wasted hemes, 

Thy scourge, Virginia, captive comes ! 

Nor thou alone : with one glad voice 
Let all thy sister Stat.es rejoice ; 
Let Freedom, in whatever clime 
She waits with sleepless eye her time, 
Shouting Erom cave and mountain wood 
Make glad her desert, solitude, 
While they who hunt her quail with fear ; 
The New World's chain lies broken here ! 

But who are they, who, cowering, wait 
Within the shattered fortress gate? 

Dark tillers of Virginia's soil, 

( 'lapsed with the battle's con in spoil, 

With household stuff's, and lowl, and swine, 
With Indian weed and planters' wine, 
With stolen beeves, and foraged corn, — 
Are they not. men, Virginian burn? 

O, veil your faces, young and brave ! 

Sleep, Sea i I, in thy soldier grave ! 

Sons of the Northland, ye who set, 
Stout hea its against the bayonel , 
And pressed with steady footfall near 
The moated batrten 's blazing tier. 
Turn your scarred faces Erom the sight, 
h i me do homage to the right ! 

Lo ! threescore years have passed ; and \ 

The Gallic timbrel stirred the air 

Witrh Northern drum roll, and the clear, 

Wild horn-blow of the i mtaineer, 

While Britain grounded on thai plain 
The arms she might not lilt, again, 
As abject as in that- old day 
The slave still toils his life away. 

O, fields Stillgreen .and fresh in story, 
Old days of pride, old names of glory, 

Old marvels of the tongue and pen. 

Old thoughts which stirred the hearts of men, 

Ye spared the wrong ; an 1 over all 

Behold the avenging shadow fall '. 

5Tour world-wide honor stained with shame, — 
Your freedom's sell' a hollow name ! 

Where 's now the flag of that old war? 
Where Hows its stripe ? Where burns its star : 
Bear witness, Palo.Alto's day. 
Dark Vale of Palms, red .Monterey, 
Where Mexic Freedom, young and weak, 
Fleshes the Northern eagle's beak ; 



S\ uiliol of terror and despair, 

< M chains and slaves, go seek it theic ! 

Laugh, Prussia, midst thy iron ranks! 
Laugh, Russia, from thy Neva's banks ! 
Brave sport to see t he fledgling born 

< )f Freedom by its parent torn ! 
Sale now is Speilbcrg's dungeon cell, 
Safe drear Siberia's fro/en hell: 
With Slavery's Hag o'er both unrolled, 
What of the' New World fears the Old? 



LIN ES, 

WRITTEN IN Tilt: B v OF .V FRIEND. 

( >\ page of thine I cannot trace 

The cold and heartless commonplace, — 
A statue's lived and marble grace. 

Por e\ er as these lines I penned. 

Still with the thought of chee will blend 

That of s • loved and i iiiioii friend, — 

Who in life's desert track hits made 
1 1 is pilgrim tent with mine, or stra \ ed 
Beneath the same remembered shade. 

And hence my pen unfettered moves 
In freedom which the heart approves, — 
The negligence which friendship loves. 

And wilt thou prize m\ j r gift less 

Por simple air and rustic dress, 

And sign of haste and carelessness ? — 

O, more than specious counterfeit 

( )f Bentiment or studied wit, 

A heart like thine should value it. 

Yet half I fear my gift will lie 
Unto thy book, if not to thee, 
Of more t ban doubtful courtesy. 

A banished name from fashion's sphere, 

A lay unheard of Beauty's ear, 

Forbid, disowned,— what do they here? — 

I 'poll my ear not, all in vain 

Came tin 1 sad captive's clanking chain, — 

The groaning from bis bed of pain. 

And sadder si ill, 1 saw the woe 

Which only wounded spirits know 

When Pride's strong footsteps o'er them go. 

Spumed not alone in walks abroad, 
But from the " temples of the Lord " 

Thrust, out apart, like things abhorred. 

i i, . p as I felt, and stern and strong. 

In words which Prudence smothered long, 

.My soul spoke out. against, the wrong ; 

Not. mine alone the task to speak 

( )f comfort to the poor and weak, 
And dry the tear on Sorrow's cheek, 

But, mingled in the conflict warm, 
To pour the fiery breath of storm 
Through the harsh trumpet of Reform; 

To brave Opinion's settled frown, 
Prom ermined robe and saintly gown, 
While wrestling reverenced Error down. 

Founts gushed beside my pilgrim way, 
Cool shadows on the greensward lay, 
Flowers swung upon the bending spray. 



GO 



LINES.— PiE AN. 



And, broad and bright, on either hind. 

id the green Blopes of Fair} land, 
With Hope's eternal sunbow spanned; 

Whence voices called me like the flow, 
Whicl - ear will grow, 

d i and low. 

And gentle eyes, which still retain 
Their picture on the heart and brain, 
Smiled, beckoning Erom that path of pain. 

In vain ! — nor dream, nor rest, nor pause 
Remain for aim who round him draws 
The battered mail of Freedom's cause. 

From youthful hopes,- -from each green spot 
( if young Romance, and g nl le Thought, 
Where storm and tumult enter not, — 

From each fair altar, where belong 
The offerings Love requires of Song 
In homage to her bright-eyed throng, — 

With soal and strength, with heart and hand, 
I burned to Freedom's struggling band, — 

To the sad Helots of our land. 

What marvel then that Fame should turn 
Her notes of praise to those of scorn, — 
Her gifts reclaimed, — her smiles withdrawn 

What matters it ! — a few years more, 
Life's surge so restless heretofore 
Shall break upon the unknown shore! 

In that far land shall disappear 

The shadows which we follow here, — 

The mist-wreaths of our atmosphere ! 

Before no work of mortal hand, 
Of human will or strength expand 
The peril gates of the Better Land ; 

Alone in that, great love which gave 
Life to the sleeper of the grave, 
Resteth the power to ' ' seek and save. " 

Yet, if the spirit gazing through 

The vista of the past can view 

One deed to Heaven and virtue true, — : 

If through the wreck of wasted powers, 
Of garlands wreathed from Folly's bowers, 
Of idle aims and misspent hours, — 

The eye can note one sacred spot 

By Pride and Self profaned not, — 

.\ gri en place in the waste or thought, — 

When- deed t>r wind hath rendered less 
"The sum of human wretchedness, " 
And Gratitude looks forth to bless, — 

The simple burst of tendcrest feeling 
From sad hearts wmn by evil-dealing, 
For blessing on the hand oi healing, — 

Better than Glory's pomp will be 
That green and blessed spot to me, 
A palm-shade in Eternity! — 

Something of Time which may invite 
The purified and spiritual sight 
To rest on with a calm delight. 

And when the summer winds shall sweep 
With their light, wings m\ place of sleep, 
And mosses round my headstone creep,— 



If still, as Freedom's rallying sign, 
Upon the VOUng heart's altars shine 
The very hies they caught from mine, — 

If words my lips once uttered still, 
111 the calm faith and steadfast will 
Of other hearts, their work fulfil, — 

Perchance with joy the soul may learn 

These tokens, and its eye discern 

The fires which on those altars burn, — 

A marvellous joy that even then, 

The spirit hath its life again, 

In the strong hearts of mortal men. 

Take, lady, then, the gift I bring, 

No gay and graceful ottering, — 

No flower-smile of the laughing spring. 

Midst the green buds of Youth's fresh May, 
With Fancy's leaf-enwoven bay, 
My sad and sombre gift I lay. 

And if it deepens in thy mind 

A sense of suffering human-kind, — 

The outcast and the spirit-blind : 

Oppressed and spoiled on every side, 
By Predjudice, and Scorn, and Pride, 
Life's common courtesies denied ; 

Sad mothers mourning o'er their trust, 
Children by want and misery nursed, 
Tasting life's bitter cup at first; 

If to their strong appeals which come 
From tireless hearth, and crowded room, 
And the close alley's noisome gloom, — 

Though dark the hands upraised to thee 

In mute beseeching agony, 

Thou lend'st thy woman's sympathy, — 

Not vainly on thy gentle shrine, 

Where Love, and Mirth, and Friendship twine 

Their varied gifts, I offer mine. 



P^EAN. 

1848. 

Now, joy and thanks forevermore ! 

The dreary night has wellnigh passed, 
The slumbers of the North are o'er, 

The Giant stands erect at last ! 

More than we hoped in that dark time 
When, faint with watching, few and worn, 

We saw no welcome day star climb 
The cold gray pathway of the morn ! 

() weary hours ! () night of years ! 

What storms our darkling pathway swept, 
Where, beating back our thronging fears, 

By Faith alone our march we kept. 

How jeered the scoffing crowd behind, 
How mocked before the tyrant train, 

As, one by one, the true and kind 
Fell fainting in our path of pain ! 

They died, — their brave hearts breaking slow,- 

But, self- forget ful to the last, 
In words of cheer and bugle blow 

Their breath upon the darkness passed. 

A mighty host, on either hand, 
Stood waiting for the dawn of day 



MEMORY OF THOMAS SHIPLEY.— TO A SOUTHERN STATESMAN. 



61 



To crush like reeds our feeble band ; 

The morn has come, — and where are they ? 

Troop after troop their line forsakes ; 
With peace-white banners waving free, 

Ami fruiii our own the glad shout bleaks, 
Of Freedom and Fraternity ! 

Like mist before the growing light, 

The hostile cohorts melt away; 
Our frowning foemen of the night 

Are brothers at the dawn of day ! 

As unto these repentant ones 

We open wide our toil-worn ranks. 

Along our line a murmur runs 
Of song, and praise, and grateful thanks. 

Sound for the onset ! — Blast on blast ! 

Tdl Slavery's minions cower and quail; 
One charge of fire shall drive them fast 

Like chaff before our Northern gale ! 

O prisoners in your house of pain, 

Dumb, toiling millions, bound and sold, 

Look ! stretched o'er Southern vale and plain, 
The Lord's delivering hand behold ! 

Above the tyrant's pride of power, 
His iron gates and guarded wall, 

The bolts which shattered Shinar's tower 
Hang, smoking, for a fiercer fall. 

Awake ! awake ! my Fatherland ! 

It is thy Northern light that shines; 
This stirring march of Freedom's band 

The storm-song of thy mountain pines. 

Wake, dwellers where the day expires ! 

And hear, in winds that sweep your lakes 
And fan your prairies' roaring fires, 

The signal-call that Freedom makes ! 



TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS SHIPLEY. 

Gone to thy heavenly Father's rest ! 

The flowers of Eden round thee blowing, 
And on thine ear the murmurs blest 

Of Siloa's waters softly flowing ! 
Beneath that Tree of Life which gives 
To all the earth its healing leaves 
In the white robe of angels clad, 

And wandering by that sacred*river, 
Whose streams of holiness make glad 

The city of our God forever ! 

Gentlest of spirits ! — not for thee 

Our tears are shed, our sighs are given; 
Why mourn to know thou art. a free 

Partaker of the joys of Heaven ? 
Finished thy work, and kept thy faith 
In Christian firmness unto death ; 
And beautiful as sky and earth, 

When autumn's sun is downward going, 
The blessed memory of thy worth 

Around thy place of slumber glowing ! 

But woe for us ! who linger still 

With feebler strength and hearts less lowly, 
And minds less steadfast to the will 

Of Him whose every work is holy. 
For not like thine, is crucified 
The spirit of our human pride : 
And at the bondman's tale of woe, 

And for the outcast and forsaken, 
Not warm like thine, but cold and slow, 

Our weaker sympathies awaken. 



Darkly upon our struggling way 

The storm of human hate is sweeping; 
Hunted and branded, and a pre;,. 

Our watch amidst the darkness keeping, 
O for that hidden strength which can 
Nei ve unto death the inner man ! 
for thy Spirit, tried and true, 

And constant in the hour of trial. 
Prepared to suffer, or to do, 

In meekness and in self-denial. 

O for that spirit, meek and mild, 

Derided, spurned, yet uncomplaining, — 
By man deserted and reviled. 

Yet faithful to its trust remaining. 
Still prompt and resolute to save 
From scourge and chain the hunted slave ; 
Unwavering in the Truth's defence, 

Even where the fires of Hate were burning, 
The unquailing eye of innocence 

Alone upon the oppressor turning ! 

O loved of thousands ! to thy grave, 

Sorrowing of heart, thy brethren bore thee : 
The poor man and the rescued sla ve 

Wept as the broken earth closed o'er thee ; 
And grateful tears, like summer rain, 
Quickened its dying grass again ! 
And there, as to some pilgrim-shrine, 

Shall come the outcast and the lowly, 
Of gentle deeds and words of thine 

Recalling memories sweet and holy ! 

O f or the death the righteous die ! 

An end, like autumn's day declining, 
On human hearts, as on the sky. 

With holier, tenderer beauty shining ; 
As to the parting soul were given 
The radiance of an opening Heaven ! 
As if that pure and blessed light, 

From off the Eternal altar flowing. 
Were bathing, in its upward flight, 

The spirit to its worship going ! 



TO A SOUTHERN STATESMAN. 

1846. 

Is this thy voice, whose treble notes of fear 
Wail in the wind '? And dost thou shake to hear, 
Acta?on-like, the bay of thine own hounds, 
Spurning the leash, and leaping o'er their bounds ? 
Sore-baffled statesman ! when thy eager hand, 
With game afoot, unslipped the hungry pack, 
To hunt down Freedom in her chosen land, 
Hadst thou no fear, that, erelong, doubling back, 
These dogs of thine might snuff on Slavery's 

track ? 
Where 's now the boast, which even thy guarded 

tongue. 
Cold, calm, and proud, in the teeth o' the Senate 

flung, 
O'er the fulfilment of thy baleful plan, 
Like Satan's triumph at the fall of man? 
How stood'st thou then, thy feet on Freedom 

planting, 
And pointing to the lurid heaven afar, 
Whence all could see, through the south windows 

slanting, 
Crimson as blood, the beams of that Lone Star ! 
The Fates are just ; they give us but our own ; 
Nemesis ripens what our hands have sown. 
There is an Eastern story, not unknown, 
Doubtless, to thee, of one whose magic skill 
Called demons up his water-jars to fill ; 
Deftly and silently, they did his will. 
But, when the task was done, kept pouring still. 
In vain with spell and charm the wizard wrought, 
Faster and faster were the buckets brought, 



62 



LINES.— THE CURSE OF THE CHARTER-BREAKERS. 



Higher and higher rose the flood around, 

Till the fiends clapped their hands above their 

master drowned ! 
So, Carolinian, it may prove with thee, 
For God still overrules man's schemes, and takes 

i snare, and makes 
The wrath of man to praise Him. It may be, 

I ii. roused spirits of Denioct a 
May Leave to freer States the same wide dour 
Through which thy Blave-cursed Texas entered 

in. 
Prom out the blood and fire, the wrong and sin, 
Of i he stunned city and the ghastly plain, 
Beat by hot hail, and wet with bloody rain, 
A myriad-handed Aztec host may pour, 
And swarthy South with pallid North combine 
Back on thyself to turn thy dark design. 



LINES, 

written on the adoption of pincknev's 
resolutions, in the house of represen- 
tatives, anh the passage of calhoun's 
"bill for excluding papers wkitten'or 
printed, tol ching the subject of slav- 
ery, from the i. s. i'ost-office," in the 
senate of the united states. 

MenoI theNorth land! where 's the manly spirit 
Of the true-hearted and the unshackled gone ? 
Sons of old freemen, do we but inherit 
Their names alone ? 



From the free fireside of her uinbought farmer, — 
From her tree laborer at Ids loom and wheel, — 
From the brown smith-shop, where, beneath the 
hammer, 

Rings the red steel, — 

From each and all, if God hath not forsaken 

Our land, and left us to an evil choice, 
Loud as the summer thunderbolt shall waken 
A People's 

Startling and stern ! the Northern winds shall 
bear it 
Over Potomac's to St.. Mary's wave ; 
I And buried Freedom shall awake to hear it. 
Within her grave. 

O, let that voice go forth ! The bondman sigh- 
ing 
By Santee's wave, in Mississippi's cane, 

Shall feel the hope, within his bosom dying, 
Revive again. 

Let it go forth ! The millions who are gazing 

Sadly upon us from afar, shall smile. 
And unto God devout thanksgiving raising, 
Bless us the while. 

O for your ancient freedom, pure and holy, 

For the deliverance of a groaning earth, 
For the wronged captive, bleeding, crushed, and 
lowly, 

Let it go forth ! 



Is the old Pilgrim spirit quenched within us, *'>"* of the best of fathers ! will ye falter 

Stoops the strong manhood of our souls so low, , With all they left ye perilled and at stake ? 
That Mammon's lure or Party's wile can win us Ho! once again on Freedom's holy altar 
To silence now ? The fire awake ! 



To silence now ' 

Now, when our land to ruin's brink is verging, 
In God's name, let us speak while there is 
time ! 
Now, when the padlocks for our lips are forging, 
Silence is crime ! 

What ! shall we henceforth humbly ask as favors 
Rights all our own ? In madness shall we bar- 
ter, 
For treacherous peace, the freedom Nature gave 

UG, 

God and our charter? 

Hi re shall the statesman forge his human fetters, 

Here the false jurist human rights deny, 
And, in the church, their proud and skilled abet- 
tors 

Make truth a lie ? 

Torture the pages of the hallowed Bible, 

To sanction crime, and robbery, and blood? 
And, in Oppression's hateful sen ice, libel 
Both man and God ? 

Shall our New England stand erect no longer, 

But stoop in chains upon her downward way 
Thicker to gather on her limbs and stronger 
Day after day ? 

O no ; methinks from all her wild, green moun- 
tains, — 
From valleys where her slumbering fathers 
lie, — 
From her blue rivers and her welling fountains, 
And clear, cold sky, — 

From her rough coast, and isles, which hungry 
Ocean 
Gnaws with his surges, — from the fisher's skiff, 
With white sail swa\ ing to the billows' motion 
Round rock and cliff, — 



Prayer-strengthened for the trial, come together, 

Put on the harness for the moral light, 
And, with the blessing of your Heavenly Father, 
M UNTAIN THE RIGHT ! 



THE CURSE OF THE CHARTER- 
BREAKERS. 37 

In Westminster's royal halls, 
Robed in their pontificals, 
England's ancient prelates stood 
For the people's right and good. 

< Hosed around the waiting crowd, 
Dark and still, like winter's cloud ; 
King and council, lord and knight, 
Squire and yeoman, stood in sight,— 

Stood to hear the priest rehearse, 
In God's name, the Church's curse, 
By the tapers round them lit, 
Slowly, sternly uttering it. 

" Right of voice in framing laws, 

Right of peers to try each cause; 
Peasant homestead, mean and small, 
Sacred as the monarch's hall, — 

"Whoso lays his hand on the < , 
England's ancient liberties, — 
Whoso breaks, by word or deed, 
England's vow at Eturmymede, — 

" I'.e he Prince or belted knight, 
Whatsoe'er his rank or might, 
If the highest, then the worst, 
Let them live and die accursed 



THE SLAVES OF MARTINIQUE. 



6H 



" Thou, who to thy Church hast given 
Keys alike, of hell and heaven, 
Make our word and witness sure, 
Let the curse we speak endure | " 

Silent, while that curse was said, 
Every bare and listening head 
Bowed in reverent awe, and then 
All the people said, Amen ! 

Seven times the bells have tolled, 
For the centuries gray and old, 
Since that stolid and mitred band 
Cursed the tyrants of their land. 

Since the priesthood, like a tower, 
Stood between the poor and power ; 
And the wronged and trodden down 
Blessed the abbot's shaven crown. 

Gone, thank God, their wizard spell, 
Lost, their keys of heaven and hell ; 
Yet I sigh for men as bold 
As those bearded priests of old. 

Now, too oft the priesthood wait 
At the threshold of the state, — 
Waiting for the beck and nod 
Of its power as law and God. 

Fraud exults, while solemn words 
Sanctify his stolen hoards; 

Slavery laughs, while ghostly lips 
Ble.-s his manacles and whips. 

Not on them the poor rely. 

Not to them looks liberty, 

Who with fawning falsehood cower 

To the wrong, when clothed with power. 

O, to see them meanly cling, 
Round the master, round the king, 
Sported with, and sold and bought, — 
Pitifuller sight is not ! 

Tell me not that this must be : 
God's true priest is always free ; 
Free, the needed truth to speak, 
Right the wronged, and raise the weak. 

Not to fawn on wealth and state, 
Leaving Lazarus at the gate, — 
Not to peddle creeds like wares, — 
Not to mutter hireling prayers,— 

Nor to paint the new life's bliss • 
On the sable ground of this, — 
Golden streets for idle knave. 
Sabbath rest for weary slave ! 

Not for words and works like these, 
Priest of God, thy mission is ; 
But to make earth's desert glad, 
In its Eden greenness clad ; 

And to level manhood bring 
Lord and peasant, serf and king; 
And the Christ of God to find 
In the humblest of thy kind ! 

Thine to work as well as pray. 
Clearing thorny wrongs away ; 
Plucking up the weeds of sin, 
Letting heaven's warm sunshine in, — 

Watching on the hills of Faith ; 
Listening what the spirit saith, 
Of the dim-seen light afar, 
Growing like a nearing star, 



God's interpreter art thou, 
To the waiting ones below ; 
'Twixt them and its light midway 
Heralding the better day, — 

Catching gleams of temple spires, 
Hearing notes of angel choirs, 
Where, as yet unse.i] of them, 
Comes the New Jerusalem ! 

Like the seer of Patmos gazing, 
On the glory downward blazing ; 
Till upon Earth's grateful sod 
Rests the City of our God ! 



THE SLAVES OF MARTINIQUE. 

SUGGESTED BY A DAGUERREOTYPE FROM A 
FRENCH ENGRAVING. 

Beams of noon, like burning lances, through the 

tree-tops flash and glisten, 
As she stands before her lover, with raised face 

to look and listen. 

Dark, but comely, like the maiden in the ancient 
Jewish song : 

Scarcely has the toil of task-fields done her grace- 
ful beauty wrong. 

He, the strong one and the manly, with the vas- 
sal's garb and hue, 

Holding still his spirit's birthright, to his higher 
nature true ; 

Hiding deep the strengthening purpose of a free- 
man in his heart. 

As the greegree holds his Fetich from the white 
man's gaze apart. 

Ever foremost of his comrades, when the driver's 

morning horn 
Calls away to stifling mill-house, to the fields of 

cane and corn : 

Fall the keen and burning lashes never on his back 

or limb ; 
Scarce with look or word of censure, turns the 

driver unto him. 

Yet, his brow is always thoughtful, and his eye 

is hard and stern ; 
Slavery's last and humblest lesson he has never 

deigned to learn. 

And, at evening, when his comrades dance before 

their master's door, 
Folding arms and knitting forehead, stands he 

silent evermore. 

God be praised for every instinct which rebels 

against a lot 
Where the brute survives the human, and man's 

upright form is not ! 

As the serpent-like bejuco winds his spiral fold on 

fold 
Round the tall and stately ceiba, till it withers in 

his hold ; — 

Slow decays the forest monarch, closer girds the 

fell embrace, 
Till the tree is seen no longer, and the vine is in 

its place, — 

So a base and bestial nature round the vassal's 

manhood twines, 
And the spirit wastes beneath it, like the ceiba 

choked with vines. 



e-i 



THE SLAVES OF MARTINIQUE.— THE CRISIS. 



world 



God is Love, saitli the Evangel; and 

of Woe and sin 
Is made lighl and happy only when a Love is 

shliui 

Ye whose lives arc free as sunshine, finding, 

m hen si ie'< r ye roam, 
Smiles of welcome, looks of kindness, making all 

the world like home ; 

In the veins of whose affections kindred blood is 
but a part, 

Of one kindly current throbbing from the univer- 
sal heart ; 

Can ye know the deeper meaning of a love in 

Slaverj nursed. 
Last flower of a lost Eden, blooming in that Soil 

accursed ? 

Love of Home, and Love of Woman ! — dear to all, 
but doubly dear 

To the heart whose pulses elsewhere measure only- 
hate and fear. 

All around the desert circles, underneath a brazen 

sky, 
Only one green spot remaining where the dew is 

never dry ! 

From the horror of that desert, from its atmos- 
phere of hell, 

Turns the fainting spirit thither, as the diver 
seeks his bell. 

'T is the fervid tropic noontime ; faint and low 
the sea- waves beat ; 

Hazy rise the inland mountains through the glim- 
mer of the heat, — 

Where, through mingled leaves and blossoms, 
arrowy sunbeams flash and glisten, 

Speaks her lover to the slave-girl, and she lifts 
her head to listen : — 

"We shall live as slaves no longer! Freedom's 

hour is close at hand ! 
Rocks her bark upon the waters, rests the boat 

upon the strand ! 

"I have seen the Haytien Captain ; I have seen 

his swarthy crew, 
Haters of the pallid faces, to their race and color 

true. 

"They have sworn to wait our coming till the 

night has passed its noon, 
And the gray and darkening waters roll above 

the sunken moon ! " 



"Go; and at thi«hour of midnight, when our last 

farewell is o'er, 
Kneeling on our place of parting, I will bless fchee 

from the shore. 

" But for me, my mother, lying on her sick-bed 

all the da \ , 

Lifts her weary head to watch me, coming through 

the twilight gray. 

"Should I leave her sick and helpless, even free- 
dom, shared with thee, 

Would be sadder far than bondage, lonely toil, 
and stripes to me. 

" For my heart would die within me, and my 
brain would soon be wild ; 

I should hear my mother calling through the twi- 
light for her child ! " 

Blazing upward from the ocean, shines the sun of 

morning-time. 
Through the coffee-trees pi blossom, and green 

hedges of the lime. 

Side by side, amidst the slave-gang, toil the lover 
and the maid ; 

Wherefore looks he o'er the waters, leaning for- 
ward on his spade ? 

Sadly looks he, deeply sighs he : 't is the Haytien's 
sail he sees, 

Like a white cloud of the mountains, driven sea- 
ward by the breeze ! 

But his arm a light hand presses, and he hears a 

low voice call : 
Hate of Slavery, hope of Freedom, Love is 

mightier than all. 



THE CRISIS. 

WRITTEN ON LEARNING THE TERMS OF THE 
TREATY WITH MEXICO. 

Across the Stony Mountains, o'er the desert's 

drouth and sand, 
The circles of our empire touch the Western 

( )e. an's strand ; 
From slumberous Timpanogos, to Gila, wild and 

free, 
Flowing down from Nuevo-Leon to California s 

sea ; 
Anil from the mountains of the East, to Santa 

Rosa's shore, 
The eagles of Mexitli shall beat the air no more. 



() the blessed hope of freedom ! how with joy and j O Vale of Rio Bravo ! Let thy simple children 



(lad surprise. 



weep : 



For an instant Shrobs her bosom, for an instant ! Close watch about their holy fire let maids of 



beam her eyes 

But she looks across the valley, where her moth- 
er's hut is seen, 

Through the snowy bloom of coffee, and the 
lemon- 1> a\ es so green. 

And she answers, sad and earnest: "It were 

wrong for thee to staj ; 
God bath heard thy prayer for freedom, and his 

linger points the way. 

" Well I know with what endurance, for the sake 

of me and mine, 
Thou hast borne too long a burden never meant. 

for souls like thine. 



Pecos keep ; 

Let Taos send her cry across Sierra Madre's pines. 
And Algodnnes toll her bells amidst, her corn and 

vines ; 
For lo ! the pale land-seekers come, with eager 

eyes of gain, 
Wide scattering, like the bison herds on broad 

Salada's plain. 

Let Sacramento's herdsmen heed what sound the 

winds bring down 
Of footsteps on the crisping snow, from cold 

Nevada's crown ! 
Full hot and fast, the Saxon rides, with rein of 

travel slack, 
And, bending o'er his saddle, leaves the sunrise 

at his back ; 



THE CRISIS.— THE KNIGHT OF ST. JOHN. 



65 



By many a lonely river, anil gorge of fir and pine, 
On many a wintry hill-top, his nightly camp-fires 
shine. 

() countrymen and brothers! that land of lake 
and plain, 

Of salt wastes alternating with valleys fat with 
grain ; 

Of mountains white with winter, looking down- 
ward, cold, serene, 

On their feet with spring-vines tangled and lapped 
in softest green ; 

Swift through whose black volcanic gates, o'er 
many a sunny vale, 

Wind-like the Arapahoe sweeps the bison's dusty 
trail ! 

Great spaces jet untravelled, great lakes whose 
mystic shores 

The Saxon rifle never heard, nor dip of Saxon oars ; 

Great herds that wander all un watched, wild 
steeds that none have tamed, 

Strange fish in unknown streams, and birds the 
Saxon never named ; 

Deep mines, dark mountain crucibles, where Na- 
ture's chemic powers 

Work out the Great Designer's will ; — all these 
ye say are ours ! 

Forever ours ! for good or ill, on us the burden 

lies ; 
God's balance, watched by angels, is hung across 

the skies. 
Shall Justice, Truth, and Freedom turn the poised 

and trembling scale? 
Or shall the Evil triumph, and robber Wrong 

prevail ? 
Shall the broad land o'er which our flag in starry 

splendor waves, 
Forego through us its freedom, and bear the tread 

of slaves ? 

The day is breaking in the East of which the 

prophets told, 
And bright -us up the sky of Time the Christian 

Age of Gold ; 
Old Might to Right is yielding, battle blade to 

clerkly pen, 
Earth's monarchs are her peoples, and her serfs 

stand up as men ; 
The isles rejoice together, in a day are nations born, 
And the slave walks free in Tunis, and by Stam- 

boul's Golden Horn ! 

I s t his,0 countrymen of mine ! a day for us to sow 
The soil of new-gained empire with slavery's 
seeds of woe ? 



To feed with our fresh life-blood the Old World's 

cast-off crime, 
Dropped, like some monstrous early birth, from 

the tired lap of Time ? 
To run anew tin- evil race the old lost nations ran, 
And die like them of unbelief of God, and wrong 

of man ? 

Great Heaven ! Is this our mission ? End in this 
the prayers and tears, 

The toil, the strife, the watchings of our younger, 
better years ''. 

Still as the Old World rolls in light, shall ours in 
shadow turn, 

A beamless Chaos, cursed of God, through outer 
darkness borne ? 

Where the far nations looked for light, a black- 
ness in the air ? 

Where for words of hope they listened, the long 
wail of despair ? 

The Crisis presses on us ; face to face with us it 
stands, 

With solemn lips of question, like the Sphinx in 
Egypt's sands ! 

This day we fashion Destiny, our web of Fate we 
spin ; 

This day for all hereafter choose we holiness or 
sin ; 

Even now from starry Gerizim, or Ebal's cloudy 
crown, 

We call the dews of blessing or the bolts of curs- 
ing down ! 

By all for which the martyrs bore their agony and 
shame ; 

By all the warning words of truth with which 
the prophets came ; 

By the Future which awaits us; by all the hopes 
which cast 

Their faint and trembling beams across the black- 
ness of the Past ; 

And by the blessed thought of Him who for 
Earth's freedom died, 

O my people ! O my brothers ! let us choose the 
righteous side. 

So shall the Northern Pioneer go joyful on his 

way ; 
To wed Penobscot's waters to San Francisco's bay ; 
To make the rugged places smooth, and sow the 

vales with grain ; 
And bear, with Liberty and Law, the Bible in his 

train : 
The mighty West shall bless the East, and sea 

shall answer sea, 
And mountain unto mountain call, Praise God, 

FOR WE ARE FREE ! 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



THE KNIGHT OF ST. JOHN. 

Erf. down yon blue Carpathian hills 

The sun shall sink again, 
Farewell to life and all its ills, 

Farewell to cell and chain. 

These prison shades are dark and cold,- 

But, darker far than they, 
The shadow of a sorrow old 

Is on my heart alway. 

5 



For since the day when Warkworth wood 

Closed o'er my steed and I. 
An alien from my name and blood, 

A weed cast out to die, — 

When, looking back in sunset light, 

I saw her turret gleam. 
And from its casement, far and white, 

Her sign of farewell stream, 

Like one who, from some desert shore, 
Doth home's green isles descry, 



60 



THE HOLY LAND.— PALESTINE. 



And, vainly longing, gazes o'er 
The waste of wave and sky ; 

So from th.' desert of my fate 

I e across the past ; 
Forever on life's dial | J 

Thr shade is backward cast! 

1 've wandered wide Erom shore to shore, 

I 've knelt at many a sin me ; 
And bowed me bo bhe rocky floor 

Where Bethlehem's tapers shine ; 

And by the Holy Sepulchre 
I 've pledged mj knightly sword 

To Christ, his blessed Church, and her, 
The Mother of our Lord. 

O, vain the vow, and vain the strife! 

How vain do all things seem ! 
My sold is in the past-, and life 

To-day is but a dream ! 

In vain t he penance strange and long, 

And hard for flesh to hear ; 
The prayer, the Easting, and the thong 
And sackcloth shirt of hair. 

The eyes of memory will not sleep, — 

Its ears are open still ; 
And vigils with the past they keep 

Against my feeble will. 

And still the loves and joys of old 

Do evermore uprise ; 
I see the flow of locks of gold, 

The shine of loving eyes ! 

Ah me ! upon another's breast 

Those golden locks recline ; 
I see upon another rest, 

The glance that once was mine. 

"O faithless priest.! perjured knight! " 

I hear the Master cry; 
"Shut out the vision from thy sight, 

Let Earth and Nature die. 

" The Church of God is now thy spouse, 
And thou the bridegroom art ; 

Then let the burden of thy vows 
Crush down thy human heart ! " 

In vain ! This heart its grief must know, 
Till life itself hath ceased, 

And falls beneath the self same blow 
The lover and the priest ! 

O pitying Mother ! souls of light, 

And saints, and martyrs old! 
Pray for a weak and sinful knight, 

A suffering man uphold. 

Then let the Payniin work his will, 

And death unbind my chain. 
Ere down yon blue ( iarpathian hill 

The sun shall fall again. 



THE HOLY LAND. 

FKOM I.AMAKTIMC. 
I HAVE not felt, o'er seas id' sand. 

The rocking of the deset t bark ; 
Nor laved at Hebron's fount my hand, 
_ \)\ I [ebron's palm-tree- cool ami dark : 
Nor pitched my tenl at even-fall. 

On dust where Jul. of old has lain, 



Nor dreamed beneath its canvas wa 
The dream of Jacob o'er again. 

One vast world page' remains unread , 
How shine the stars in ( 'haldea's sky, 

How sounds the reverent pilgrim's tread, 

How beat s t he heart with ( tod so nigh ! — 
How round gray arch and column lone 

The spirit of the old time broods, 
And sighs in all the -winds that moan 

Along the sandy solitudes ! 

In thy tall cedars, Lebanon, 

I have not heard the nations' cries, 
Nor seen thy eagles stooping down 

Where buried Tyre in ruin lie-.. 
The Christian's prayer I have not said 

In Tadmor's temples of decaj . 
Nor startled, with my dreary tread, 

The waste where Memnon's empire lay. 

Nor have I, from thy hallowed tide, 

O Jordan ! heard the low lament, 
Like that sad wail along thy side 

Which Israel's mournful prophet sent ! 
Nor thrilled wit hin that grotto lone 

Where, deep in night, the Bard of Kings 
Felt hands of fire direct his own, 

And sweep for God the conscious strings. 

I have not climbed to Olivet, 

Nor laid me where my Saviour lay, 
And left his trace of tears as yet 

By angel eyes unwept away ; 
Nor watched, at midnight's solemn time, 

The garden where his prayer and groan, 
Wrung by his sorrow and our crime, 

Rose to One listening ear alone. 

I have not kissed the rock-hewn grot 

Where in his Mother's arms he lay, 
Nor knelt upon the sacred spot 

Where last his footsteps pressed the clay ; 
Nor looked on that sad mountain head, 

Nor smote my sinful lu-cast. where wide 
His arms to fold the world he spread, 

And bowed his head to bless— and died ! 



PALESTINE. 

Blebt land of Judaea ! thrice hallowed of song, 
Where the holiest of memories pilgrim-like 

throng ; 
In the shade of thy palms, by the shores of thy 

sea, 
On the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with thee. 

With the eye of a spirit I look on that shore, 
Where pilgrim and prophet have lingered be- 
fore , 
With the glide of a spirit I traverse the sod 
Made bright by the steps of the angels of God. 

Blue sea of the hills ! — in my spirit 1 hear 
Thy waters, Genesaret, chime on my ear; 
Where the Lowly and Just with the people sat 

down, 
And thy spray on the dust of his sandals was 

thrown. 

Beyond are Bethulia's mountains of green, 
And the desolate hills of the wild Gadarene; 
Ami I pause on the goat-crags of Tabor to see 
TJ ham of thy waters, <) dark Calilee! 

Hark, a sound in the valley ! where, swollen and 

strong, 
Thy river, Kishou, is sweeping along ; 



PALESTINE. — EZEKIEL. 



67 



Where the Canaanite strove with Jehovah in 

vain, 
And thy torrent grew dark with the blood of the 

skin. 

There down from his mountains stern Zebulon 

came, 
And Naphtali's stag, with his eyeballs of flame, 
And the chariots of Jabin rolled harmlessly on, 

For the arm of the Lord was Abinoam's son ! 

There sleep the still rocks and the caverns which 

rang 
To the song which the beautiful prophetess sang, 
When the princes of Issachar stood by her side, 
And the shout of a host in its triumph replied. 

Lo, Bethlehem's hill-site before me is seen, 
With the mountains around, and the valleys be- 
tween ; 
There rested the shepherds of Judah, and there 
The song of the angels rose sweet on the air. 

And Bethany's palm-trees in beauty still throw 
Their shadows at 1100:1 on the ruins below ; 
But where are the sisters who hastened to greet 
The lowly Redeemer, and sit at his feet ? 

I tread where the twelve in their wayfaring trod ; 
I stand where they stood with the chosen of 

God,— 
Where his blessing was heard and his lessons were 

taught. 
Where the blind were restored and the healing was 

wrought. 

(), here with iiis flock the sad Wanderer came, — 
These hills lie toiled over in grief are the same, — 
The founts where lie drank by tin: wayside still 

flow, 
And the same airs are blowing which breathed 011 

his brow ! 

And throned on her hills sits Jerusalem yet, 
But with dust on her forehead, and chains on her 

feet ; 
For the crown of her pride to the mocker hath 

gone, 
And the holy Shechinah is dark where it shone. ' 

But wherefore this dream of the earthly abode 
Of Humanity clothed in the brightness of God ? 
Were my spirit but turned from the outward 

and dim. 
It eon hi gaze, even now, on the presence of Him ! 

Not in clouds and in terrors, but gentle as when, 
In love and in meekness, He moved among men ; 
And the voice which breathed peace to the waves 

of the sea 
In the hush of my spirit would whisper to me ! 

And what if my feet may not tread where He 

stood, 
Nor my ears hear the dashing of Galilee's flood, 
Nor my eyes see the cross whicli He bowed him to 

bear, 
Nor my knees press Gethsemane's garden of 

prayer. 

Yet, Loved of the Father, thy Spirit is near, 
To the meek, and the lowly, and penitent here ; 
And the voice of thy love is the same even now 
As at Bethany's tomb or on Olivet's brow. 

O, the outward hath gone ! — but in glory and 

power, 
The SPIRIT surviveth the things of an hour ; 
Unchanged, undecaying, its Pentecost flame 
On the heart's secret altar is burning the same ! 



EZEKIEL. 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 30-33. 

They hear thee not, O God ! nor see ; 

Beneath thy rod they mock at thee ; 

The princes of our ancient line 

Lie drunken with Assyrian wine ; 

The priests around thy altar speak 

The false words whicli their hearers seek ; 

And hymns which Chaldea's wanton maids 

Have sung in Dura's idol-shades 

Are with the Levites' chant ascending, 

With Zion's holiest anthems blending ! 

On Israel's bleeding bosom set, 

The heathen heel is crushing yet ; 

The towers upon our holy hill 

Echo Chaldean footsteps still. 

Our wasted shrines, — who weeps for them ? 

Who moumeth for Jerusalem? 

Who turneth from his gains away V 

Whose knee with mine is bowed to pray ? 

Who, leaving feast and purpling cup, 

Takes Zion's lamentation up '! 

A sad and thoughtful youth, I went 
With Israel's early banishment ; 
And where the sullen Chebar crept, 
The ritual of my fathers kept. 
The water for the trench I drew, 
The firstling of the flock I slew, 
And, standing at the altar's side, 
I shared the Levites' lingering pride, 
That still, amidst her mocking foes, 
The smoke of Zion's offering rose. 

In sudden whirlwind, cloud and flame, 
The Spirit of the Highest came ! 
Before mine eyes a vision passed, 
A glory terrible and vast ; 
With dreadful eyes of living things, 
And sounding sweep of angel wings, 
With circling light and sapphire throne, 
And flame-like form of One thereon, 
And voice of that dread Likeness sent 
Down from the crystal nrmament ! 

The burden of a prophet's power 

Fell on me in that fearful hour ; 

From off unutterable w 

The curtain of the future rose ; 

I saw far down the coming time 

The fiery chastisement of crime ; 

With noise of mingling hosts, and jar 

Of falling towers and shouts of war, 

I saw the nations rise and fall, 

Like fire-gleams on my tent's white wall. 

In dream and trance, I saw the slain 
Of Egypt heaped like harvest grain. 
1 saw the walls of sea-born Tyre 
Swept over by the spoiler's fire ; 
And heard the low, expiring moan 
Of Edom on his rocky throne ; 
And, woe is me ! the wdd lament 
From Zion's desolation sent ; 
And felt within my heart each blow 
Which laid her holy places low. 

In bonds and sorrow, day by day, 

Before the pictured tile I lay ; 

And there, as in a mirror, saw 

The coming of Assj ria's war, — 

Her swarthy lines of spearmen pass 

Like locusts through Bethhoron's grass ; 

I saw them draw their stormy hem 

< )f battle round Jerusalem ; 

And, listening, heard the Hebrew wail 

Blend with the victor-trump of Baal ! 



»8 



THE WIFE OF MANOAH TO HER HUSBAND. 



Who trembled at my warning word? 

Who owne I the prophei of the Lord ? 

How mocked the rude, how scoffed the vile, 

How stung the Levites' scorni ul smile, 

As o'er HI} spil it, dark and slow, 

The shadow crept o1 Israel's woe 

As ii i he angel's mournful roll 

Had left its record on my soul, 

And traced in lines of darkness there 

The pii ; gi eat despair ! 

Yet ever a1 th ■ hour l feel 
My lips in prophecy unseal. 
Prince, priest, and Levite gather near, 
And Salem's daughters haste to hear, 
On Cheliar's waste and alien shore, 
The harp of .1 udah swept once more. 
The} listen, as in Babel's throng 
The Chaldeans to the dancer's song, 
Or wild sabbeka's nightly play, 
As careless and as vain as they. 



And thus, () Prophet-bard of old, 

Hast thou thy tale of sorrow told ! 
The same which earth's unwelcome seers 
Have felt in all succeeding years. 
Sport of the changeful multitude. 
Nor calmly heard nor understood, 
Their song has seemed a trick of art, 
Their warnings but the actor's part. 
With bonds, and scorn, and evil will, 
The world requites its prophets still. 

So was it when the Holy One 
The garments of the flesh put on ! 
Men followed where the Highest led 
For common gifts of daily bread, 
And gross of ear, of vision dim. 
Owned not the godlike power of him. 
Vain as a dreamer's words to them 
His wail above Jerusalem, 
And meaningless the watch he kept 
Through which his weak disciples slept. 

Yet shrink not thou, whoe'er thou art, 
For < rod's great purpose set apart, 
Before whose far-dis serning eyes, 
The Future as the Present lies 1 
Beyond a narrow-bounded age 
Stretches thy prophet h irita 
Through Heaven's dim spaces angel-trod, 
Through arches round the throne of Cod ! 
Thy audience, worlds !— all Time to be 
The witness of the Truth in thee ! 



THE W T 1FE OF MANOAH TO HER HUS- 
BAND. 

Against the sunset's glowing wall 

The city towers lis.- black and tall, 
Where Zorah, on its rocky height, 
Stands like an armed man in the light. 

Down Bshtaol's vales of ripened grain 
Falls like a cloud the night amain. 
And up the hillsides climbing slow 
The barley reapers homeward go. 

Look, dearest! how our fair child's head 
The sunsei light hal b hallowed, 
Where at this olive's foot he lies, 
Uplooking to the tranquil si i 

<), while beneath the B event heat 

Thy sickle swept, the bearded wheat, 

I 've watched, with mingle, I jo\ and dread, 

Our child upon his grass} bed. 



Joy, which the mother feels alone 
Wiiose morning hope like mine had down, 

When to her bosom, in cr-lil- ssed, 

A dealer life than lers is pressed. 

Dread, for the future dark and still, 

i shapes our dear one to its will ; 
Forever in his large calm eyes, 
I read a tale of sacrifice. — 

The same foreboding awe I felt 

When at the altar's side we knelt, 

And he, who as a pilgrim came, 

Hose, winged and glorious, through the tlaine. 

1 slept not, though the wild bees made 
A dreamlike murmuring in the shade, 
And on me the warm-fingered hours 
Pressed with the drowsy smell of flowers, 

Before me, in a \ ision, rose 

The hosts of Israel's scornful foes,— 
Rank over rank, helm, shield, and spear, 
Glittered in noon's hot atmosphere. 

1 heard their boast, and bitter word, 
Their mockery of the Hebrew's Lord, 
1 saw their hands his ark assail, 
Their feet profane his holy veil. 

No angel down the blue space spoke. 
No thunder from the- still sky broke ; 
But in their midst, in power and awe, 
Like God's waked wrath, OUK CHILI) I saw ! 

A child no more! — harsh-browed and stroi g, 
Hi- towered a giant, in tin- throng, 
And down his shoulders, broad and bare, 
Swept the black terror of his hair. 

lie raised his arm ; lie smote amain ; 
As round the reaper falls the grain, 
So the dark host around him fell, 
So sank the foes of Israel ! 

Again I looked. In sunlight shone 
The towers and domes of Askelon. 
Priest, warrior, slave, a mighty crowd, 
Within her idol temple bowed. 

Yet one knelt not ; stark, gaunt, and blind, 
His arms the massive pillars twined, — 
An eyeless captive, strong with hate, 
He stood there like an evil Fate. 

• 
The red shrines smok.-d,— the trumpets pealed 
He stooped, — the giant columns reeled, — 
Reeled tower anil fane, sank arch and wall, 
And t he thick dust cloud closed o'er all ! 

Above the shriek, the crash, the groan 
Of the fallen pride of Askelon, 
I heard, sheer down the echoing sky, 
A voice as of an angel cry, — 

The voice of him, who at our side 

Sat through t In- golden eventide,— 

Of him who, on t hy altar's blaze, 

Hose tire -winged, with his song of praise. 

" Rejoice o'er [srael's broken chain, 
Gray mother of the mighty slain ! 
Rejoice ! " it cried, " he va m piishof h ! 
Tin- strong in life is strong in death ! 

"To him shall Zorah's daughters raise 

Through ci g years t hen- hymns of praise, 

And gray ol 1 men at evening tell 
Of all he wrought for Israel. 



TIIE CITIES OF THE PLAIN.— THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 



G9 



" And fcliey who sing and fchey who hear 

Alike shall hold thy memory dear, 
And pour their blessings on thy head, 

mother of the mighty dead ! " 

It ceased ; and though a sound I heard 

As it great v i;: red, 

1 only saw the eaves 
And hills half hid by olive leaves. 

I bowed my face, in awe and I 

On the dear child who slumbered near. 

" With me, as with my only son, 

God," I said, " Tin w ill be done ! " 



THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN. 

"Get ye up from the wrath of God's terrible 

day ! 
C ngirded, unsandalled, arise and away ! 
'Tis the vintage o J blood, 'tis the fulness of time, 
And vengeance shall gather the harvest of 

crime ! " 

The warning was spoken ; the righteous had gone, 
And the proud ones ot Sodom were it asting alone ; 
All gay was the banquet; the revel was lo 
Willi the pouring of wine and the breathing of 
song. 

'T was an evening of beauty ; the air was perfume, 
The earth was all greenness, the trees were all 

bloom ; 
And softly the delicate viol was heard, 
Like the murmur of love or the notes of a bird. 

And beautiful maidens moved down in the dance, 
With the magic of motion and sunshine of glance ; 
And white arms wreathed lightly, and tresses 

fell free 
As the plumage of birds in some tropical tree. 

Where the shrines of foul idols were lighted on 

high, 
And wantonness tempted the lust of the eye ; 
Midst rites of obsceneness, strange, loathsome, 

abhorred, 
The blasphemer scoffed at the name of the Lord. 

Hark! the growl of the thunder, — the quaking 

of earth ! 
Woe, woe to the worship, and woe to the mirth ! 
The black sky has opened, — there 's flame in 

the air, — 
The red arm of vengeance is lifted and bare ! 

Then the shriek of the dying rose wild where the 
song 

And the low tone of love had been whispered 
along ; 

For the fierce flames went lightly o'er palace 
and bower, 

Like the red tongues of demons, to blast and de- 
vour ! 

Down,— down on the fallen the red ruin rained, 
And the reveller sank with his wine-cup un- 
drained ; 

The foot of the dancer, the music's loved thrill. 
And the shout and the laughter grew suddenly 
still. 

The last throb of anguish was fearfully given ; 
The last eye glared forth in its madness on 

Heaven ! 
The last groan of horror rose wildly and vain, 
And death brooded over the pride of the Plain ! 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 

Sunlight upon Judaea's hills ! 

And on tiie waves of Galilee, — 
On Jordan's stream, and on the rills 

That U\_-ii ill i dead and sleeping 
Mosl Ereshlj from the greenwood springs 
The light breeze on its scented wings ; 
And gayly quiver in the sun 
The cedar tops of Lebanon ! 

A few more hours, — a change hath come ! 

The sky is dark without a cloud ! 
The shouts of wrath and joy are dumb, 

And proud knees unto earth are bowed. 
A change is on the hill of Death, 
The helmed watchers pant for breath, 
And turn with wild and maniac eyes 
From the dark scene of sacrifice ! 

That Sacrifice !— £he death of Him, — 

The High and ever Holy One ! 
Well may the conscious Heaven grow dim, 

And blacken the beholding Sun. 
The wonted light hath fled away, 
Night settles on the middle day, 
Ami earthquake from his caverned bed 
Is waking with a thrill of dread ! 

The dead are waking underneath ! 

Their prison door is rent away ! 
And, ghastly with the seal of death, 

They wander in the eye of day ! 
The temple of the Cherubim, 
The House of God is cold and dim ; 
A curse is on its trembling walls, 
Its mighty veil asunder falls ! 

Well may the cavern-depths of Earth 

Be shaken, and her mountains nod ; 

Well may the sheeted dead come forth 

To gaze upon a suffering God ! 
Well may the temple shrine grow dim, 
And shadows veil the Cherubim, 
When He, the chosen one of Heaven, 
A sacrifice for guilt is given ! 

And shall the sinful heart, alone, 

Behold unmoved the atoning hour, 
When Nature trembles on her throne, 
And Death resigns his iron power '! 
O, shall the heart — whose sinfulness 
Gave keenness to his sore distress, 
And added to his tears of blood — 
Refuse its trembling gratitude ! 



THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 

Where Time the measure of his hours 
By changeful bud and blossom keeps. 

And. like a young bride crowned with flowers, 
Fair Shiraz in her garden sleeps ; 

Where, to her poet's turban stone 

The Spring her gift of flowers imparts, 

Less sweet than those his thoughts have sown 
In the warm soil of Persian hearts : 

There sat the stranger, where the shade 
Of scattered date-trees thinly lay, 

While in the hot clear heaven delayed 
The long and still and weary day. 

Strange trees and fruits above him hung, 
Strange odors fitted the sultry air, 

Strange birds upon the branches swung. 
Strange insect voices murmured there. 



70 



THE STAR OF BETI I U-ll I i:\I.-IIYMNS. 



Ami Btrange bright blossoms shone around, 

Turned Biurward from the shadow} bowers, 
As if the ( rheber's bouI had found 

A iii i hag b e in 1 can n> 

Whate'er l |r saw, w hate'er he heard, 
A wait i Eei lings new and sad, — 

No Chrisl ian garb, nor < Ihristian word, 
Nor church with Sabbath bell chimes glad, 

Bui Moslem graves, with turban stones, 
And mosque spires gleaming white, in view, 

\ nd graj beard Mollahs In low I is 

Chanting bheir Koran service bhrough. 

The flowers which smiled on either hand, 
Like tempting fiends, were such as they 

Which one, uYi all thai Eastern land, 

As gifts on demon altars lay. 

As [f the burning ej e of I taal 
The Bervanl oi his ( lonqueror knew , 

Prom skies which knew no cfoudy veil, 
The Sun's hot glances Bmote him through. 

" A h me ! " the lonely el ranger said, 
" The hope \\ hich led my footsteps on, 

Ami light from heaven around them shed, 
o'er wean wave and waste, isgone! 

" Where are I he harvest fields all white, 

For Trul h to thrust her sickle in . 

Where flock the souls, like doves in flight, 

J 1 ' ron i t he dark hiding place of sin ? 

" A silent horror broods o'er all, — 

The burden o\' a. hateful spell, — 
Tin \ ,1 \ flowers around recall 

The hoary magi's rides of hell ! 

" And what am I, o'er such a kind 
The banner of the ( !ross to hear . 

hear Lord, uphold me with thy hand, 
Thy strength with human weakness share ! ' 

He ceased ; for at his very feet 
In mild rebuke a floweret smiled, — 

I low thrilled his sinking heart- to greet 
The Star flower of the Virgin's child ! 

Sown bj s ime wandering Prank, it drew 

Its life from alien air and earth, 

A ml told to Pa\ nim sun and dew 
The story of the Saviour's birth. 

from scorching beams, in kindly mood. 
The Persian plants its beauty screened, 

And on its pagan sisterhood, 

I 'i l"\ e, the Christ ian floweret leaned. 

ars of joy the wanderer felt 
The darkness of his long despair 

Before that hallowed symbol melt, 

Which Cod's dear lo\c had nurtured there. 

From Nature's face, that simple flower 
The lines of sin and sadness swept. ; 

Ami Magian pile and l'a\ nim bower 
In peace like that of Eden slept. 

Eat h Moslem tomb, and e\ press old. 

Looked holy through t he sunset air ; 
And, angel like, the Muezzin told 
Prom tower and mosque the hour of prayer. 

With el rful steps, the morrow's dawn 

From Shiraz saw the strangef part; 

The Star (low. r oi t he Virgin Born 
Still blooming in his hopeful heart! 



HYMNS. 

PEOM tin: FRENCH OF LAMARTINE, 

< >\ i. h\ mn more, ( > my h I e ! 
Praise to t he Cod above, 

( )f joy and life and lo\ i , 

Sweeping its Btrings of fire! 

(), who the speed of bird and wind 
And sunbeam's glance will lend to me, 

That, soaring upward, I may And 
\l 3 resting place and home in Thee ? 

Thou, whom my soul, midst doubt and gloom, 

Adoreth with a fervent flame, — 
Mysterious spirit ! unto whom 

Pertain nor sign nor name ! 

Swiftly my lyre's sofl murmurs go, 

Dp from the cold and joyless earth, 

Hack- to the Cod who hade them flow, 

\\ hose moving spirit sent them forth. 
I hit as for me, < ) ( hid ! lor me, 
Tin lowly deal ure ol t hy will, 

Lingering and sad, I sigh to thee, 
An earth-hound pilgrim still ! 

Was not my spirit horn to shine 

Where yonder stars and suns arc glowing? 

To breathe with them the lighl divine 

Prom God's own holy altar flowing ? 

To he, indeed, w hat. ■'■ i I he soul 

In dreams hath thirsted lor so long, — 

A portion of Heaven's glorious whole 
Of loveliness and song ? 

( ), watchers of the stars at night, 

\\ ho Invat he t heir lire, as we the air, — 
Suns, thunders, stars, and rays of light, 

( ), say , is I le, the Eternal, I here . 
Bend there around his awful throne 

The seraph's glance, the angel's knee ? 
Or are thy inmost depths his own. 

( ) wild and mighty sea, ? 

Thoughts of my soul, how swift ye go ! 

Swift as the eagle's glance ol tire, 
< )r a rrOWS from the archer's how, 

To the far aim of your desire ! 
Thought, after thought, ye thronging rise, 

Like spring-doves from the startled wood. 
Bearing like t hem j our sacrifice 

( )f music unto ( iod ! 

And shall these thoughts of joy and love 

( ome back again no more to me? — 
Returning like the l'at riarch's dove 

Wing weary from the eternal sea, 
To hear wit hin my longing anus 

The promise hough of kindlier skies, 
Plucked from the green, immortal palms 

Which shadow Paradise? 

All moving spirit ! freely forth 

At thy command the strong wind goes : 
Its errand to the passive earth, 

Nor art can stay, nor strength oppose, 
Until it folds its weary wing 

( race more within tin- hand divine ; 
So weary from it s wandering, 

.My spuii t urns to thine ! 

Child of the sea, the mi untain stream, 

Prom its dark caverns, hurries oil, 

< Vaseless, by night and morning's beam, 
l'.\ evening's star and noontide's sun. 

Until at last it sinks to lest, 

( I'erweai ied, in the waiting sea. 

Ami moans upon its mother's hreast, — 
So tin ns my soil! to Thee ! 



HYMNS. THE l'K.MALE MARTYR. 



71 



O Thou who bidd'st the torrent Bow, 

Who lendest wings unto the wind, — 
Mi., er tit' all things ! where art thou ? 

( ), whit her shall I go to find 
The secret of thy resting place? 

Is there no holy wing for me, 
That, soaring, I may search t he space 

i ti highest heaven for Thee ? 

(), would 1 were as free to rise 

As leavi - <m autumn's whirlwind borne, — 
The arrowy light of sunset, sides, 

Or sound, or ray, or star of morn, 
Which melts in heaven at twilight's close, 

Or aught which soars unchecked and free 
Fhrough Earth and Heaven ; that 1 might lose 

Myself in finding Thee ! 



When the breath divine is flowing, 
Zephyr [ike o'er all things going, 
Ami, as the touch of viewless lingers, 
Soli l\ on my soul it, lingers, 
Open to a breal h t he light -t 
( ionscious of a touch the slightest, — ■ 
As Bom ■ calm, still lake, wh c ion 
Sinks the snowy bosomed swan, 
And the glistening water-rings 

( lircle round her \ i rig w ings : 

When my upward gaze is turning 
Where the stars of heaven are burning 
Through' the deep and 'lark abyss, — 
Flov - r i of midnight's wilderness, 
Blowing with the evening's breath 
Sweetly in their Maker's path : 

When the breaking day is flushing 
All cue east, and light is gushing 
Upward through the horizon's haze, 

like, with its thousand rays, 

ling, until all abo e 
Overflows with joy and love, 
An I below, on earth's green bosom, 
All is changed to light and blossom: 

3 over 
Forms ot brightn sss Hit, and hover, 
Holy as the seraphs are, 

W ho i\\ Zion's I tarns wear 

On their foreheads, whit- ami broad, 
" Holiness i nto i he Lord ! " 

When, inspired with rapture high, 
It would seem a single sigh 
( lould a world of love create, — 
That my life could know no date, 
And my eager I b >ug hi 3 could fill 
Heaven and Karth, o'erflowing still ! — 

Then, Pal her ' I hou alone, 

From the shadow of I bj I krone, 

To the sighing of my breast 

A id its rapt ure answerest. 

All my thoughts, which, upward winging, 

Bal where thy own light is springing, — 

AM my yearnings to be free 

Are as echoes answering thee ! 

Seldom upon lips of mine. 

Father ! rests that name of thine, — 

J)e.-p within my inmost, breast, 
In the :e of mind, 

Like an awful presence shrined, 

Doth the dread idea rest ! 

Hushed and holj dwells it there, — 

Prompter of the silent pi 

Lifting up my spirit's eye 
And its faint Iin i i a rnest cry, 
From its dark and cold aln.de. 
Unto theo, my Guide and God ! 



THE FEMALE MARTYR. 

[Mart G Sisteb or < Iharj i v," died 

i our Ulanl i i i ng the pr< 

the Indian cholera, while in volunl 

" Bring out your dead ! " The midnight street 
Heard and gave back the hoarse, low call ; 

Harsh. fell the I read of ha it \ Eei 

Glanced through the dark the coarse white 
t, — 
Her coffin and her pall. 

" What— only one ! " the brutal hackman said, 

As, with an oath, he spurned away the dead. 

How sunk the inmost hearts of all. 
As lolled that di ad earl slow ly by, 

With creaking wheel and harsh hoof-fall! 

The dying turned him to the wall, 
To hear it and to die ! — 

( )nw a rd it lolled ; while oft its driver stayed, 

And hoarsely clamored, "Ho! — bring out your 
dead." 

If paused beside the burial-plaee : 
" Toss in your load ! " -audit was done. — 

W it i, quick hand and averted face, 

Masf ily to the gra \ e's embrace 
Thej casl t hem, one bj one 

Stranger and friend, — the evil and the just, 
i trodden in the churchyard dust ! 

And thou, young martyr ! thou wast there, — 

No white robed sisters round thee trod, — 
Nor holy hymn, nor funeral prayer 
Rose through the damp and noisome air, 

( Jiving thee to thy God : 
Nor flow r. nor cross, nor hallowed taper gave 
Grace to the dead, and beauty to the grave ! 

Yet, gentle sufferer ! there shall be, 

In every heart of kindly feeling, 
A rite as holy paid to thee 
As if beneat h t he con\ ent ( ree 

Thy sisterhood were kneeling, 
At, vesper hours, like sorrowing angels, keeping 
Their tearful watch around thy place of sleeping. 

For thou wast one in whom the light 
<>l Heaven's own love was kindled well. 

Enduring with a martyr's might, 

Through weary day and wakeful night, 
Par more than words may tell : 

Gentle, and meek, and lowly, and unknown, — 
] Thy mercies measured by thy God alone! 

i Where manlj hearts were failing, where 
The throngful street grew foul with death, 

O high-souled martyr ! — thou wast there, 

Inhaling, from the loathsome air, 
Poison with every breath. 

Yet shrinking not- from offices of dread 

For the wrung dying, and the unconscious dead. 

And, where the sickly taper shed 

\t> light through vapors, damp, confined, 

Hushed as a seraph's fell thy tread, — 
A new Elect r;i, by the bed 

Of suffering human kind ! 
Pointing the spirit, in its dark dismay, 
'I'o that pure hope which fadeth not away. 

Innocent teacher of the high 
And holy mysteries of Heaven ! 

How turned t,, thee each glazing eye, 
In mute and awful synipat h 

As t hy low prayers were given ; 
And tin o'er hovering Spoiler wore, the while, 

An angel's features, .id liverer's smile ! 



72 



THIS FROST SPIRIT. 



A lil, Bsed task ! and worthj one 

Who, burning from the world, as thon, 
Before Life's pathway had begun 

To li ;i\ e its spring time flower and .sun, 

Had scaled her early vow ; 
( ;i\ Lng i" God her beautj and her youth, 
II, i pure affections and her guileless truth. 

Earth may not claim thee. Nothing- here 

Could be Eor thee a meet reward ; 
Thine is a treasure far more dear, — 

Eye hath not .-ecu it, nor the ear 

( )!' living i tal heard, — 

The joys prepared, the promised bliss above,— 
'I'h, holy presence of Eternal Love ! 

Sleep on in peace. The earth has not 
A nobler name than thine shall be. 

The deeds by martial manhood wrought, 

The loll \ energies of thought, 
The tire of poesy, — 

These have but frail and lading honors; — thine 

Shall Time unto Eternity consign. 

Yea, and when thrones shall crumble down, 
And human pride and grandeur fall, — 

The herald's line of long renown, — 

The mitre and the kingly crown, — 
Perishing glories all ! 

The pure devotion ol thy generous heart 

Shall live in Heaven, of which it was a part. 



THE FROST SPIRIT. 

He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes ! 

You may trace his footsteps now 
On the naked woods and the hlasted fields and 

the brown hill's withered brow. 



lie has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees 

where their pleasant green Came forth, 
And the winds, which follow wherever he goes, 

have shaken them down to earth. 

He conies, -he conns, the Frost Spirit comes ! 

— from the frozen Labrador, — 
From the icy bridge of the Northern seas, which 

the white bear wanders o'er, — 
Where the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice, and 

the luckless forms below 
In tin sunless cold of the lingering night into 

marble statues grow ! 

He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes ! — 

on the rushing Northern blast, 
And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed as his 

fearful breath went past. 
With an unscorched wing he has hurried on, 

where the fires of Hecla glow- 
On the darkly beautiful sky above and the ancient 

ice below. 

He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes ! — 

and the quiet lake shall Eei 1 
The torpid touch of his glazing breath, and ring 

to the skater's heel ; 
And the streams which danced on the broken 

rocks, or sang to the leaning grass, 
Shall bow again to their winter chain, and in 

mournful silence pass. 

He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes ! — 
let us meet him as we may, 

And turn with the light of the parlor-fire his evil 
power away ; 

And gather closer the circle round, when that fire- 
light dances high, 

And laugh at the shriek of the baffled Fiend as 
his sounding wing goes by ! 




" The rushing Murlhuni blast. 



THE VAUDOIS TEACHER.— MY SOUL AND I. 



73 



THE VAUDOIS TEACHER. 38 

"O lady fair, these silks of mine are beautiful 

and ra 
The richest web of the Indian loom, which 

beauty's queen might wear; 
Ami my pearls are pure as thy own Eair deck, 

with whose radiant light they vie; 
I have brought them with me a weary way, — will 

my gentle lady buy ? " 

And the lady smiled Oil tile worn old man through 

the dark and clustering' curls 
Which veiled her brow as she bent to view his 

silks and glittering pearls ; 
And she placed their price in the old man's hand, 

and lightly turned away, 
But she paused at the wanderer's earnest call, — 

"My gentle lady, stay ! " 

" O lady fair, I have yet a gem which a purer 
lustre flings, 

Than the diamond flash of the jewelled crown on 
the lofty brow of kings, — 

A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose vir- 
tue shall not decay, 

Whose light shall be as a spell to thee and a 
blessing on thy way ! " 

The lady glanced at the mirroring steel where her 

form of grace was seen, 
Where her eye shone clear, and her dark locks 

waved their clasping pearls between ; 
"Bring forth thy pearl of exceeding worth, thou 

traveller gray and old, — 
And name the price of thy precious gem, and my 

page shall count thy gold." 

The cloud went off from the pilgrim's brow, as a 

small and meagre book, 
Unchased with gold or gem of cost, from his 

folding robe he took ! 
"Here, lady fair, iff the pearl of price, may it 

prove as such to thee ! 
Nay — -keep thy gold — I ask it not, for the word of 

God is free ! " 

The hoary traveller went his way, but the gift he 
left behind 

Hath had its pure and perfect work on that high- 
born maiden's mind, 

And she hath turned from the pride of sin to the 
lowliness of truth, 

And given her human heart to God in its beauti- 
ful hour of youth ! 

And she hath left the gray old halls, where an 

evil faith had power, 
The courtly knights of her father's train, and the 

maidens of her bower ; 
And she hath gone to the Vaudois vales by lordly 

feet untrod, 
Where the poor and needy of earth are rich in the 

perfect love of God ! 



Not, always thus, with outward sign 

Of tire en- voice from Heaven, 
The message of a truth divine, 

Tin call of ( ;.id is given ! 
Awaking in the human heart 

Love for the true and right, — 
Zeal for the Christian's better part, 

Strength for the Christian's light. 

Nor unto manhood's heart alone 

The holy influence steals : 
Warm with a rapture not its own, 

The heart of woman feels ! 
As she who by Samaria's wall 

The Saviour's errand sought, — 
As those who with the fervent Paul 

And meek Aquila wrought : 

Or those meek ones whose martyrdom 

11' ime's gathered grandeur saw : 
Or those who in their Alpine home 

Braved the Crusader's war, 
When the green Vaudois, trembling, heard, 

Through all its vales of death, 
The martyr's song of triumph poured 

From woman's failing breath. 

And gently, by a thousand things 

Which o'er our spirits pass, 
Like breezes o'er the harp's fine strings, 

Or vapors o'er a glass, 
Leaving their token strange and new 

Of music or of shade, 
The summons to the right and true 

And merciful is made. 

0, then, if gleams of truth and light 

Flash o'er thy waiting mind, 
Unfolding to thy mental sight 

The wants of human-kind ; 
If, brooding over human grief, 

The earnest wish is known 
To soothe and gladden with relief 

An anguish not thine own ; 

Though heralded with naught of fear, 

Or outward sign or show ; 
Though only to the inward ear 

It whispers soft and low ; 
Though dropping, as the manna fell, 

Unseen, yet from above, 
Noiseless as dew-fall, heed it well, — 

Thy Father's call of love ! 



THE CALL OF THE CHRISTL\N. 

Not always as the whirlwind's rush 

On Horeb's mount of fear, 
Not always as the burning bush 

To Midian's shepherd seer, 
Nor as the awful voice which came 

To Israel's prophet hards, 
Nor as the tongues of cloven flame, 

Nor gift of fearful words, — 



MY SOUL AND I. 

Stand still, my soul, in the silent dark 

I would question thee, 
Alone in the shadow drear and stark 

With God and me ! 

What, my soul, was thy errand here ? 

Wis it mirth or ease, 
Or heaping up dust from year to year '? 

" Nay, none of these ! " 

Speak, soul, aright in His holy sight 

Whose eye looks still 
And steadily on thee through the night : 

"To do his will ! " 

What hast thou done, O soul of mine, 

That thou tremblest so V — 
Hast thou wrought his task, and kept the line 

He bade thee go ? 

What, silent all ! — art sad of cheer ? 
Art fearful now ? 



74 



MY SOUL AND I. 



When God seemed far and men were near, 
How brave werl 

: him fcremblesl ! -well I - < 
Thou 'rl ci 

i ard w ii h < rod and me 
To stand alone ? — 

Summon thy sunshine bravery hack, 
() wretched spi 

bear thy voi bhis deep and black 

,\l>\ smal ai 

What hast thou wrought for Right and Truth, 

For God and Man. 
From the golden hours of bright-eyed youth 

To life's mill span ? 

All, soul of mine, thy tons I hear, 

Hut weak and low, 
Like far sail murmurs on my ear 

They come and go. 

" 1 have wrestled stoutly with the Wrong, 
Anil Inline the Right 

beneal I all of the throng 

To life and light. 

" Wherever freedom shivered a chain, 

God speed, quoth I ; 
To Error amidst her shouting train 

I gave the lie." 

Ah, soul' of mine ! ah, soul of mine ! 

Thy deeds are well : 
Were they wrought for Truth's sake or for 
thine ? 

My soul, pray tell. 

" Of all the work my hand hath wrought 

Beneath the sky, 
Save a place in kindly human thought, 

No gain have I." 

Go to, go to ! — for thy very self 

Thy deeds were done : 
Thou for fame, the miser for pelf, 

Your end is one ! 

And where art thou going, soul of mine ? 

Canst see the end ? 
And w hither this troubled life of thine 

Evermore doth tend? 

What daunts thee now V — what shakes thoe so ? 

My sad sotd say. 
" I see a cloud like a curtain low 

Hang o'er my way. 

" Whither I go I cannot tell : 

That cloud hangs black, 
High as the heaven and deep as hell 

Across my track. 

its shadow coldly enwrap 
The souls before. 
Sadly bfa it, step by step, 

To return no m 

"They shrink, they shudder, dear God! they 
kneel 
To thee in prayer. 
They shut their eyes on the cloud, but feel 

That it still is t ! : 

"In vain they turn from the dread Before 
To t In- Known and ( {one ; 

For while gazing behind them evermore 
Their feet glide on. 



" Yet, at times, . pon sweet pale faces 

A 1 gin h, 
To tremble, as if From holy pla 

And shrines \\ ithin. 

"And at times methinks their cold lips move 

With hymn and prayi c, 
As if somewhat of awe, lmt more of love 

And hope were there. 

" I call on the souls who have left the light 

To reveal their lot ; 
I bend mine ear tot hat wall of night, 
And they answer not. 

"15. it 1 luar around me sighs of pain 

And the en *>f Eear, 
And a, sound like the slow sad dropping of rain, 

Each drop a tear ! 

" Ah, the cloud is dark, and day by day 

1 am moving tint her : 
I must pass beneath it on my way — 

Cod pity me !— WHITHEH V " 

Ah, soul of mine ! so brave and wise 
In tho life storm Loud, 

Fronting so calmly all human eyes 
In the sunlit crowd ! 

Now standing apart with God and me 

Thou art weakness all, 
Gazing vainly after the things to be 

Through Death's dread wall. 

But never for this, never for this 

Was thy being lent ; 
For the craven's fear is but selfishness 

Like his merriment. 

Folly and fear are sisters twain : 

One closing her eyes, 
The other peopling the dark inane 

With spectral lies. 

Know well, my soul, God's hand controls 

Whate'er thou fearest ; 
Round him in calmest music rolls 

Whate'er thou hearest. 

What to thee is shadow, to him is day. 

And the end he knoweth, 
And not on a blind and aimless way 

The spirit goeth. 

Man sees no future, — a phantom show- 
Is alone before him : 

Past Time is dead, and the grasses grow, 
And flowers bloom o'er him. 

Nothing before, nothing behind; 

The steps of Faith 
Fall on the seeming void, and find 

The rock beneath. 

The Present, the Present is all thou hast 

For thy sure possessing : 
Like the patriarch's angel hold it fast 

Till it gives its blessing. 

Why Eear the night? why shrink from Death, 

'That phantom wan V 
There is nothing in heaven or earth beneath 

Save God and man. 

Peopling the shadows we turn from Him 

And from one another ; 
All is spectral and vague and dim 

Save God and our brother! 



TO A FRIEND. 





"Rhine-stream, by castle old. 



Like warp and woof all destinies 

Are woven fast, 
Linked in sympathy like the keys 

Of an organ vast. 

Pluck one thread, and the web ye mar ; 

Break but one 
Of a thousand keys, and the paining jar 

Through all will run. 

O restless spirit ! wherefore strain 

Beyond thy sphere ? 
Heaven and hell, with their joy and pain, 

Are now and here. 

Back to thyself is measured well 

All thou hast given ; 
Thy neighbor's wrong is thy present hell, 

His bliss, thy heaven. 

And in life, in death, in dark and light, 

All are in God's care : 
Sound the black abyss, pierce the deep of night, 

And he is there ! 

All which is real now remaineth, 

And fadeth never : 
The hand which upholds it now sustaineth 

The soul forever. 

Leaning on him, make with reverent meekness 

His own thy will. 
And with strength from Him shall thy utter 
weakness 

Life's task fulfil; 

And that cloud itself, which now before thee 

Lies dark in view, 
Shall with beams of light from the inner glory 

Be stricken through. 

And like meadow mist through autumn's dawn 

Uprolling thin, 
Its thickest folds when about thee drawn 

Let sunlight in. 

Then of what is to be, and of what is done, 

Why queriest thou V — 
The past and the time to be are one, 

And both are now ! 



TO A FRIEND, 

ON IIEU RETURN FROM EUROPE. 

How smiled the land of France 
Under thy blue eye's glance, 

Light-hearted rover ! 
Old walls of chateaux gray, 
Towers of an early day, 
Which the Three Colors play 

Flauntingly over. 

Now midst the brilliant train 
Thronging the banks of Seine : 

Now midst the splendor 
Of the wild Alpine range, 
Waking with change on change 
Thoughts iu thy young heart strange, 

Lovely, and tender. 

Vales, soft Elysian, 
Like those in the vision 

Of Mirza, when, dreaming, 
He saw the long hollow dell, 
Touched by the prophet's spell, 
Into an ocean swell 

With its isles teeming. 

Cliff's wrapped in snows of years, 
Splintering with icy spears 

Autumn's blue heaven : 
Loose rock and frozen slide, 
Hung on the mountain-side, 
Waiting their hour to glide 

Downward, storm-driven ! 

Rhine-stream, by castle old, 
Baron's and robber's hold, 

Peacefully flowing ; 
Sweeping through vineyards greeu, 
Or where the cliffs are seen 
O'er the broad wave between 

Grim shadows throwing. 

Or, where St. Peter's dome 
Swell^o'er eternal Rome, 

' Vast, dim, and solemn, — ■ 
Hymns ever chanting low, — 
Censers swung to and fro, — 
Sable stoles sweeping slow 
Cornice and column ! 



76 



THE ANGEL OP PATIENCE.— FOLLEN. 



(), as from each and all 
Will bhere not voices call 

K\ i rmort back again ? 
In t he mind's galler} 
Wilt t hou not alwaj s see 
Dim phantoms beckon thee 

( >Vr ( hat old track again ? 

Nru Eorms thj presence haunt, — 
New voices softly chant, — 

\i'« faces greet i hee ! — 
Pilgrims Erom manj a shrine 
Hallowed l>\ poet's lim , 
\ i memory's magic sign, 

Rising to meet thee. 

And when such visions come 
' Into thy olden home, 

Will they not waken 
1 >eep thoughts of Him whose hand 
Led thee o'er sea and land 
Lack to the household hand 

Whence thou wast taken ' ; 

While, at the sunset time, 
Swells the cat hedral's chime, 

Yet, in thy dreaming, 
While to thy spirit's eye 
Yet the vast mountains lie 
Piled in the Switzer's sky, 

Icy and gleaming : 

Prompter of silent prayer, 
Be the wild picture there 

In the mind's chamber, 
And. through each coming day 
Him who, as staff and stay, 
Watched o'er thy wandering way, 

Freshly remember. 

So, when the call shall be 
Soon or late unto thee, 

As to all given, 
Still may that picture live, 
All its fair forms survive, 
And to thy spirit give 

Gladness in Heaven ! 



THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE. 

A FREE PARAPHRASE OF THE GERMAN. 

To weary hearts, to mourning homes, 
God's meekest Angel gently comes: 
No power has he to banish pain, 
Or give us back our lost again ; 
And yet in tenderest love, our dear 
And Heavenly father sends him here. 

There's quiet in that Angel's glance, 
There's n st in his still countenance ' 
He mocks no grief with idle cheer, 
Nor wounds with words the mourner's ear 
But ills and woes he may not cure 
He kindly trains us to endure. 

Angel of Patience ! sent to calm 
Our feverish brows with cooling palm ; 
To lay the storms of hope and fear, 
And reconcile life's smile and tear ; 
The throbs of wounded pride to still, 
And make our own our Father's will ! 

thou who mournest on thy way. 
With longings for the close of day ; 
He walks with thee, that A.ngel kind. 
And gently whispers, " Be resigned : 
Bear up, hear on, the end shall tell 
The deai Lord ordereth all things well ! " 



POLLEN. 

ON READING Ills i.ssav <>\ THE " FUTURE STATE. 1 

Friend of my bouI ! — as with moist eye 

1 look up Erom this page of bl 
Is it a dream thai I hou art nigh, 

'l'h\ mild face ga sing into mine V 

That presence seems lielure me 1|<IW, 

A placid heaven of sweet moon rise, 

When, dew like, on the earth below 
I descends the quiet of the skies. 

The calm brow through the parted hair, 

The gentle lips which knew n<> guile, 
Softening the blue eye's thoughtful care 

With the bland beauty of their smile. 

Ah me I— at times that last t]ic-.u\ scene 
Of Frost and Fire and moaning Sea, 

Will cast its shade of doubt be( ween 
The failing eyes ol Faith and thee. 

Yet, lingering o'er thj charmed page, 
Where through the t « ilighl air of I art h, 

Alike enthusiast and sage, 

Prophet and bard, thou gazest forth ; 

Lifting the Future's solemn veil ; 

The reaching of a mortal hand 
To put aside the cold and pale 

Cloud-curtains of the Unseen Land ; 

In thoughts which answer to my own, 
In words which reach my inward ear, 

Like whispers from the void Unknown, 
I feel thy living presence here. 

The waves which lull thy body's rest, 
The dust thy pilgrim footsteps trod, 

Unwasted, through each change, attest 
The fixed economy of God. 

Shall these poor elements outlive 

The mind whose kingly will they wrought V 
Their gross unconsciousness survive 

Thy godlike energy of thought . 

Thou livest, Follen ! — not in vain 
Hath thy fine spirit meekly borne 

The burthen of Life's cross of pain. 

And the thorned crown of suffering worn. 

O, while Life's solemn mystery glooms 
Around us like a dungeon's wall, — 

Silent earth's pale and crowded tombs, 
Silent the heaven which bends o'er all ! 

While day by day our loved ones glide 
In spectral silence, hushed and lone, 

To the cold shadows which divide 
The living from the dread Unknown ; 

While even on the closing eye, 

And on the lip which moves in vain, 
The seals of that stern mystery 

Their undiscovered trust retain ; — 

And only midst the gloom of death. 

Its mournful doubts and haunting fears. 

Tw i pale, sweet angels, I lope and Faith, 
Smile dimly on us through their tears ; 

'T is something to a heart like mine 

To think of thee as 1 in 
To Eeel that such a light as I 

< lould not in utter darkness s it. 

Less dreary seems the untried \\a\ 
Since bhou hast left thy footprints there, 



TO THE REFORMERS OP ENGLAND. 



77 



And beams of mournful beauty play 
Round the sad Angel's sable hair. 

Oh ! — at tins hour when half the sky 

[s glorious with its evening light, 
And Eair broad fields of summer lie 

Hung o'er with greenness in my sight ; 

While through these elm boughs wet with rain 

The sunset's golden walls are seen, 
With clover-bloom and yellow grain 

And wood-draped hill and stream betwi 

long tu know if scenes like this 
Are hidden from an angel's 
I earth's familiar loveliness 
Haunts not thy heaven's serener skies. 

For sweetly here upon thee grew 
The lesson which that beauty gave, 

' 'he i i leal of the Pure ami True 
In earth and sky and gliding wave. 

And it may lie that all which lends 

The soul an upward impulse here, 
With a diviner beauty blends, 

And greets us in a holier sphere. 

Through groves where blighting never fell 
The humbler flowers of earth may twine ; 

And simple draughts from childhood's w( II 
Blend with the angel-tasted wine. 

But be the prying vision veiled, 

\nd let tli • seeking lips lie dumb, — 
Where even seraph eyes have failed 
Shall mortal blindness seek to come ? 

We only know that thou hast gone, 

And that the same returnless tide 
Which bore thee from us still glides on, 

And we who mourn thee with it glide. 

On all thou lookest we shall look. 

And to our gaze erelong shall turn 
That page of God's mysterious book 

We so much wish, yet dread to learn. 

With Him. before whose awful power 

Thy spirit bent its trembling knee; — 
Who. m the silent greeting flower, 
And forest leaf, looked out on thee, — 

We leave thee, with a trust serene. 

Which Time, nor Change, nor Death can move, 
While with thy childlike faith we lean 

On Him whose dearest name is Love ! 



Forget ye how the blood of Vane 
From earth's green bosom cried ? 

The great hearts of your olden time 
Are beating with you, full and strong 

All holy i temories ami sublime 
Ami glorious round ye fchroi 

The bluff, bold men of Runnymede 
Are with ye still m tine s Like t hese ; 

The shades of England's mighty dead, 
Your cloud of w it aesses ! 

The truths ye urge are borne abroad 

By every wind and every tide ; 
The voice of Nature and of God 

Speaks out upon your side. 

The weapons which your hands have found 
Are those which Heaven itself has wrought, 

Light, Truth, and Love ; — your battle-ground 
The free, broad held of Thought. 

No partial, selfish purpose breaks 

The simple beauty of your plan, 
Nor lie from throne or altar shakes 

Your steady faith in man. 

The languid pulse of England starts 

And bounds beneath your words of power, 

The beating of her million hearts 
Is with you at this hour ! 

O ye who, with undoubting eyes, 

Through present cloud and gathering storm, 
Behold the span of Freedom's skies, 
And sunshine soft and warm, — 

Press bravely onward ! — not in vain 
Your generous trust in human-kind ; 

The good which bloodshed could not gain 
Your peaceful zeal shall find. 

Press on ! — the triumph shall be won 
Of common rights and equal laws, 

The glorious dream of Harrington, 
And Sidney's good old cause. 

Blessing the cotter and the crown. 
Sweetening worn Labor's bitter cup; 

And, plucking not the highest down, 
Lifting the lowest up. 

Press on ! — and we who may not share 

The toil or glory of your tight 
May ask, at least, in earnest prayer, 

God's blessing on the right ! 



TO THE REFORMERS OF ENGLAND. 

God bles"s ye, brothers ! — in the fight 
Ye 're waging now, ye cannot fail, 

For better is your sense of right 
Than king-craft's triple mail. 

Than tyrant's law, or bigot's ban, 
More mighty is your simplest word; 

The free heart of an honest man 
Than crosier or the sword. 

Go, — let your bloated Church rehearse 
The lesson it has learned so well; 

It moves not with its prayer or curse 
The gates of heaven or hell. 

Let the State scaffold rise again, — 
Did Freedom die when Russell died ? 



THE QUAKER OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

The Quaker of the olden time ! — 

How calm and firm and true, 
Unspotted by its wrong and crime, 

He walked the dark earth through. 
The lust of power, the love of gain, 

The thousand lures of sin 
Around him, had no power to stain 

The purity within. 

With that deep insight which detects 

All great things in the small, 
And knows how each man's life affects 

The spiritual life of all, 
He walked by faith and not by sight, 

By love and not by law ; 
The presence of the wrong or right 

He rather felt than saw. 



78 



THE REFORMER.— THE PRISONER FOR PERT. 



He frit-that wrong with wrong partakes, 

That ii< >t hing stands alone, 
That whoso gives the motive, makes 

I lis brother's sin his own. 
And, pausing not for doubtful choice 

Or evils grea i or small, 
I [e Listened to thai inward voice 

Which called away from all. 

> Spirit of hat early day, 

So pure and si rong and true. 
Be with us in the narrow way 

( >ur faithful fathers knew. 
Give Btrength the evil to forsake, 

The cross of Truth to bear, 
Ami love and reverent fear to make 

Our daily lives a prayer ! 



THE REFORMER. 

ALL grim and soiled and brown with tan, 

I saw a Strong One, in his wrath, 
Smiting the godless shrines of man 
Along his path. 

The Church, beneath her trembling dome, 

Essayed in vain her ghostly charm : 
Wealth shook within his gilded home 
With strange alarm. 

Fraud from his secret chambers fled 

Before the sunlight bursting in : 

Sloth drew her pillow o'er her head 

To drown the din. 

" Spare," Art implored, " yon holy pile ; 

That grand, old, time-worn turret spare " 
Meek Reverence, kneeling in the aisle, 
Cried out, ' ' Forbear ! " 

Gray-bearded Use, who, deaf and blind, 
< ; roped for his old accustomed stone, 
Leaned on his staff, and wept to find 
His seat o'erthrown. 

Young Romance raised his dreamy eyes, 

( >'erhurig with paly locks of gokl, — 

" Why smite," he asked in sad surprise, 

" The fair, the old '! " 

Yet louder rang the Strong One's stroke, 

Yet nearer hashed his axe's gleam ; 
Shuddering and sick of heart 1 woke, 
As from a dream. 

I looked : aside the dust-cloud rolled, — 

The Waster seemed the Builder too ; 
Up springing from the ruined Old 
I saw the New. 

'T was but the ruin of the bad, — 

The wasting of the wrong and ill; 
Whate'er of good the old time had 
Was living still. 

Calm grew the brows of him I feared ; 

The frown which awed me passed away, 
And left behind a smile which cheered 
Like breaking day. 

The grain grew green on battle-plains, 

< )"ei- swan hi I war- imds grazed the cow ; 

The slave stood forging from his chains 
pade and plough. 



Where frowned tin- fort, pavilions gay 
And cottage windows. Mower-entwined, 

Looked OUt upon the' peaceful bay 

And hills behind. 

Through vine-wreathed cups with wine once red, 

The lights on brimming crystal fell, 
Drawn, sparkling, from the rivulet head 
And mossy well. 

Thro mh prison wall-,, like Heaven-sent hope, 
fresh breezes blew, and sunbeams strayed, 
And with the idle gallows-rope 

The young child played. 

W'heie the doomed victim in his cell 
llad counted o'er the weary hours, 
Olad school-girls, answering to the bell, 
Came crowned with flowers. 

Grown wiser for the lesson given, 

I fear no longer, for 1 know- 
That, where the share is deepest driven, 
The best fruits grow. 

The outworn rite, the old abuse, 

The pious fraud transparent grown, 
The good held captive in the use 
Of wrong alone, — 

These wait their doom, from that great law 
Which makes the past time serve to-day ; 
And fresher life the world shall draw 
From their decay. 

O, backward-looking son of time ! 

The new is old, the old is new, 
The cycle of a change sublime 

Still sweeping through. 

So wisely taught the Indian seer ; 

Destroying Seva, forming Brahm, 
Who wake by turns Earth's love and fear, 
Are one, the same. 

Idly as thou, in that old day 

Thou mournest, did thy sire repine; 
So, in his time, thy child grown gray 
Shall sigh for thine. 

But life shall on and upward go ; 

Th' eternal step of Progress beats 
To that great anthem, calm and slow, 
Which God repeats. 

Take heart ! — the Waster builds again, — 

A charmed life old ( roodness hath ; 
The tares may perish, — but the grain 
Is not for death. 

Cod works in all things ; all obey 

His first propulsion from the night: 
Wake thou and watch ! — the world is gray 
Witli morning light ! 



THE PRISONER FOR DEBT. 

LOOK on him ! — through his dungeon grate 
Feebly and cold, th- morning light 

Comes stealing round him, dim and late, 
As if it ioat bed the sight. 

Reclining on his strawy bed, 

His hand upholds his drooping head, — 



LINES. 



79 



His bloodless cheek is seamed and hard, 
Unshorn his gray, neglected beard ; 
And o'er his bony lingers flow 
His long, dishevelled Locks of 

No grateful fire before him glows, 

wiliii! breath is chill ; 

And o'er his half-clad p rson 

The I trill ! 

Silent, save ever and a 
A Bound, half murmur and half groan, 
Forces apart the painful grip 
' >f tin- old sufferer - b warded lip; 
'. ) sad and crushing is thi 
Ot" old aye chained and desolate ! 

id ! why lies that old man thru- » 
A murderer shares his prison bed, 

eyeballs, through his horrid hair, 
Gleam on him. fierce and red; 
And the rude oath and heartless jeer 
Fall ever on his loathing e w, 
And, or in wakefulness or sleep, 

flesh, and pulse3 thrdl and ere p 
Whene'er that ruffian's tossing limb, 
Crimson with murder, touches him ! 

What has the gray-haired prisoner done? 
Has murder stained his hands with gore? 
; his crime 's a fouler one ; 

rOD MADE THE OLD MAN POOR ! 

lis he shares a felon's cell, — 
The fittest earthly type of hell ! 
For this, the boon for which he poured 
His young blood on the invader's sword, 
And counted light the fearful cost, — 
His blood-gained liberty is lost ! 

And so, for such a place of rest, 

Old prisoner, dropped thy blood as rain 
On Concord's field, and Bunker's crest, 

And Saratoga's plain? 
Look forth, thou man of many seais, 
Through thy dim dungeon's iron bars; 
It must be joy, in sooth, to see 
Yon monument upreared to thee, — 
Piled granite and a prison cell, — ■ 
The land repays thy service well ! 

Go, ring the bells and fire the guns, 
And fling the starry banner out ; 

Shout "Freedom ! " til your lisping ones 
Give back their cradle-shout ; 

Let boastful eloquence declaim 

Of honor, liberty, ami fame; 

the poet's strain lie heard, 

With ich se 'on I word, 

And e 

To praise "our glorioas liberty ! " 

But when the patron cannon jars 

That prison's cold and gloomy wall, 
And through its grates the stripes and stars 

on the wind, and Call, — 
Think ye that prisoner's aged ear 

oic is in the general cheer? 
Think ye bis dim and failing eye 
Is kindled at your pageantry ? 
Sorrowing of so d and chained of limb, 
What is your carnival to him ? 

Down'with the law that binds him thus ! 

Unworthy freemen, let it find 
No refuge from the withering curse 

Of God and human kind ! 
Open the prison' ■ Lb, 

Ami usher tj- mi its 1 in >o in ■ loom 
The victims of your savage 
To the free sun and air of God : 
No longer dare as crime to brand 
The chastening of the Almighty's hand. 



LINES, 

WRITTEN ON READING PAMPHLETS PUBLISHED 
I'.V CLERGYMEN AGAINST THE ABOLITION OF 

Tilt: (.ALLOW s. 

I. 

Tin: suns 11 centuries have shone 

mer walked with man, an\ 
made 
The fisher's boat, the cavern's floor of stone, 
And mountain moss, a pillow for Ins head ; 
And He, who wandered with t) Jew, 

And bioke with publicans the bread of shame. 
And drank, with blessings in his Father's 
name, 
The water which Samaria's outcast drew, 
Hath now his temples upon every shore, 

Altar aid shrine and priest, — and incense dim 
Evermore vising, with low prayer and hymn. 
From lips which press the temple's marble floor. 
Or kiss the gilded sign of the dread Cross He 
bore. 



Yet as of old, when, meekly " doing good," 
He fed a blind and selfish multitude, 
And even the poor companions of his lot 
With their dim earthly vision knew him not, 

How ill are his high teachings understood ! 
Where He hath spoken Liberty, the priest 

At his own altar binds the chain anew ; 
Where He hath bidden to Life's ecpaal feast, 

The starving many wait upon the few ; 
Where He hath spoken Peace, his name hath been 
Tiie loudest war cry of contending men ; 
Priests, pale with vigils, in his name have blessed 
The unsheathed sword, and laid the spear in rest, 
Wet the war-banner with their sacred wine, 
And crossed its blazon with the holy sign ; 
Yea, in his name who bade the erring live, 
And daily taught his lesson, — to forgive !— 

Twisted the cord and edged the murderous steel ; 
And, with his words of mercy on their lips, 
Hung gloating o'er thepincer's burning grips, 

And the grim horror of the straining wheel ; 
Fed the slow flame which gnawed the victim's 

limb, 
Who saw before his searing eyeballs swim 

The image of their Christ in cruel zeal, 
Through the black torment-smoke, held mocking- 
ly to him ! 



The blood which mingled with the desert sand 

And beaded with its red and ghastly dew 
The vines and olives of the Holy Land, — 

The shrieking curses of the hunted Jew, — 
The white-sown bones of heretics, where'er 
They sank beneath the Crusade's holy spear, — 
Goa's dark dungeons, — Malta's sea-washed -cell, 

Where with the hymns the ghostly fathers 
sung 

.Mingled the groans by subtle torture wrung, 
Heaven's anthem blending with the shriek of 

hell ! 
T midnight of Bartholomew, — the stake 

Of Smithfield, and that thrice-accursed flame 
Winch Calvin kindled by Geneva's lake, — 
New England's scaffold, arid the priestly sneer 
Which mocked its victims in that hour of fear, 

When guilt itself a human tear might claim,— 
Bear witness, thou wronged and merciful One ! 
That Earth's most hateful crimes have in thy 
name been done ! 



R.I 



THE HUMAN SACRIFICE. 



Thank God ! that 1 have lived to sit the time 
When the greal truth begins al last to find 
An utterance from the deep heart of mankind, 
Earnest and cleai thai \\ i. Revenge is Crime ! 
That man is holier i han a creed, i hat all 
Restraint upon him must consult his good, 

sunshine linger on his prison wall, 
And Love look in upon his solitude. 
Thr beautiful lesson which our Saviour taught 
Through long, dark c snturiesits way hath wroughl 

he common mind and popular thought ; 
\nd words, to which l>\ Galilee's laki shore 
The humble fishers listened with hushed oar, 
Have found an echo in the general heart, 
And of the public faith become a living part. 



Who shall arrest this tendency ? — Bring back 
The cells of Venice and the bigot's rack ? 
Harden the softening human heart again 
To cold indifference to a brother's para ? 
Ye most unhappy men ! — who, turned away 
From the mild sunshine of the Gospel day, 

Grope in the shadows oil Man's twilight time, 
What mean ye, that with ghoul-like zest ye brood, 
O'er those foul altars streaming witli warm blood, 

Permitted in another age and olime ': 
Why eite that law with which the bigot Jew 
Rebuked the Pagan's mercy, when he knew 
No evil in the Just One ?— Wherefore turn 
To the dark cruel past V — Can ye not learn 
From the pure Teacher's life, show mildly free 
Is the great Gospel of Humanity V 
The Flamen's knife is bloodless, and no more 
Mexitli's altars soak with human gore, 
No more the ghastly sacrifices smoke 
Through the green arches of the Druid's oak ; 
And ye of milder faith, with your high claim 
Of prophet-utterance in the Holiest name. 
Will ye become the Druids of our time ! 
.Set up your scaffold -altars in our land. 
And, consecrators of Law's darkest crime, 

to its loathsome work the hangman's hand ? 
Beware, — lest human nature, roused at last, 
From its peeled shoulder your encumbrance cast, 

And, sick to loathing of your cry for blood, 
Rank ye with those who led their victims round 
The Celt's reel altar and the Indian's mound, 

Abhorred of Earth and Heaven, — a pagan 
brotherhood ! 



THE HUMAN SACRIFICE. 



I'm: from his close and noisome cell, 

By grassy lane :\\\*\ sunny stream, 
Bl iwn clover field and strawberry dell, 
And green and meadow freshness, tell 

Tie foots! eps of his dream. 
. from care! ss feet the dew 

Of summer's misty morn he shook; 
Again with merry heart- he threw 

Mis light line in the rippling brook. 
Back crowded all his school-day joys, — 

He urged the ball and quoit again, 
And heard the shout of laughing boys 

( 'nine ringing down the walnut glen. 
he felt the western breeze, 

With scent of flowers and crisping hay ; 
And down again through w ind -stirred trees 

He saw the quivering sunlight play. 



An angel in home's vine hung door, 
He saw his sister smile once more; 

( 'nee % the truant's brown locked head 

Upon his mother's knees was laid. 
And sweetly lulled to slumber there, 
With evening's holy hymn and prayer ! 



He woke. At once on heart and brain 
The present Terror rushed again, — 
» 'lanked on his limbs the felon's chain ! 
He woke, lo hear the church tower tell 
Time's footfall on the conscious bell, 
And, shuddering, feel that clanging din 
His hfr's LAST HOTJK had usher, d m ; 
To see within his prison-yard, 
Through tin: small window, iron barred, 
The gallows shadow rising dun 
Between the sunrise heaven and him, — 
A horror in God's Messed air, — 

A blackness in his morning light, — 
Like some foul devil-altar there 

Built up by demon hands at night. 

And, maddened by that evil shdit, 
Dark, horrible, confused, and strange, 
A chaos of wild, weltering change, 
All power of check and guidance gone, 
Dizzy and blind, his mind swept on. 
In vain he strove to breathe a prayer. 

In vain he turned the Holy Book, 
He only heard the giillows-stair 

< 'reak as the wiud its timbers shook. 
No dream for him of sin forgiven, 

While still that baleful spectre stood, 

With its hoarse murmur, " Blood for Blood! 
Between him and the pitying Heaven ! 



Low on his dungeon floor he knelt. 

And smote his breast, and on his chain, 
Whose iron clasp he always felt. 

His hot tears fell like rain ; 
And near him, with the cold, cairn look 
And tone of one whose formal part, 
Unwarmed, unsoftened of the heart, 
Is measured out- by rule and hook, 

With placid lip and tranquil hi 1, 

The hangman's ghostly ally stood, 
Ble.-sing with solemn text and word 
I he gallows-drop and strangling cord; 
Lending the sacred Gospel's awe 
And sanction to the crime of Law. 



He saw the victim's tortured brow,— 

The sweat of anguish starting there, — 
The record of a nameless woe 
In the dim eye's imploring stare, 
Seen hideous through the long, damp hair, 
Fingers of ghastly skin and hone 
Working and writhing on the stone! — 
And heard, by mortal terror wrung 
From heaving breast and stiffened tongue. 
The choking sob and low hoarse prayer; 
As o'er his half-crazed fancy came 
A vision of die eternal flame, — 
Its smoking cloud of agonies, 

Its del i worm that never dies, — 

The everlasting rise and fall 

Of lire waves round the infernal wall ; 

While high above that dark' red flood, 

Black, gianl like, tie' gallows stood; ■ 
Two busy Bends attending there : 
One with oold mocking rite and prayer, 
The other w ii h Lmpat ient grasp. 
Tightening tb" death-rope's strangling clasp. 



RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE. 



81 



The unfelt rite at length was done, — 

The prayer unheard at length was said, — 
An hour had passed : — the noonday sun 

Smote on the features of the dead ! 
And he who stood the doomed beside, 
Calm gauger of the swelling t idi- 
ot' mortal agony and tear, 
Heeding with curious eye and ear 
Whate'or revealed the keen excess 
Of man's extremest wretchedness: 
And who in that dark anguish saw 

An earnest of the vietim's fate. 
The vengeful terrors of God's law, 

The kindlings of Eternal hate, — 
The first drops of that fiery rain 
Which beats the dark red realm of pain, 
Did lie uplift ins earnest cries 

Against the crime of Law, which gave 

His brother to that fearful grave, 
Whereon Hope's moonlight never lies, 

And Faith's white blossoms never wave 
To the soft breath of Memory's sighs ; — 
Which sent a spirit marred and stained, 
By fiends of sin possessed, profaned, 
In madness and in blindness stark, 
Into the silent, unknown dark V 
No, — from the wild and shrinking dread 
With which he saw the victim led 

Beneath the dark veil which divides 
Ever the living from the dead. 

And Nature's solemn secret hides, 
The man of prayer can only draw 
New reasons for his bloody law ; 
New faith in staying Murder's hand 
By murder at that Law's command ; 
New reverence for the gallows-rope, 
As human nature's latest hope ; 
Last relic of the good old time, 
When Power found license for its crime. 
Anil held a writhing world in check 
By that fell cord about its neck ; 
Stifled Sedition's rising shout, 
Choked the young breath of Freedom out, 
And timely checked the words which sprung 
From Heresy's forbidden tongue; 
While in its noose of terror bound, 
The Church its cherished union found, 
Conforming, on the Moslem plan, 
The motley-colored mind of man, 
Not by the Koran and the Sword, 
But by the Bible and the Cord ! 



O Thou ! at whose rebuke the grave 
Back to warm life its sleeper gave. 
Beneath whose sad and tearful glance 
The cold and changed countenance 
Broke the still horror of its trance, 
And, waking, saw with joy above, 
.-v brother's face of tenderest love ; 
'''hull, unto whom the blind and lame, 
The sin rowing and the sin-sick came, 
And from thy very garment's hem 
Drew life and healing unto them, 
The burden of thy holy faith 
Was love and life, not hate and death, 
Man's demon ministers of pain, 

The fiends of his revenge were sent 

From thy pure Gospel's element 
To their dark home again. 
Thy name is Love ! What, then, is he, 

Who in that name the gallows rears, * 
An awful altar built to thee, 

With sacrifice of blood and tears V 
O, once again thy healing lay 

On the blind eyes which knew thee not, 



And let the light of thy pure day 
MM in upon his darkened thought. 

Soften Ins hard, cold heart, and show 
The power which in forbearance lies, 

And let him feel that mercy now 
Is better than old sacrifice ! 



As on the White Sea's charmed shore, 

The Parsee sees his holy hill 
With dunnest smoke-clouds curtained o'er, 
Yet knows beneath them, evermore. 

The low, pale fire is quivering still ; 
So, underneath its clouds of sin. 

The heart of man retaineth yet 
( rleams of its holy origin ; 

And half-quenched stars that never set, 
Dim colors of its faded bow. 

And early beauty, linger there, 
And o'er its wasted desert blow 

Faint breathings of its morning air, 
O, never yet upon the scroll 
Of the sin-stained, but priceless soul, 

Hath Heaven inscribed " Despair ! " 
( last not the clouded gem away, 
Quench not the dim but living ray, — 

My brother man, Beware ! 
With that deep voice which from the skies 
Forbade the Patriarch's sacrifice, 

God's angel cries, Forbear ! 



RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE. 

O Mother Earth ! upon thy lap 

Thy weary ones receiving, 
And o'er them, siknt as a dream, 

Thy grassy mantle weaving, 
Fold softly in thy long embrace 

That heart so worn and broken, 
And cool its pulse of fire beneath 

Thy shadows old and oaken. 

Shut out from him the bitter word 

And serpent hiss of scorning ; 
Nor let the storms of yesterday 

Disturb his cpiiet morning. 
Breathe over him forgetfuhn> . 

Of all save deeds of kindmss, 
And, save to smiles of grateful eyes, 

Press down his lids in blindness. 

There, where with living ear and eye 

He heard Potomac's flowing, 
And, through his tall ancestral trees, 

Saw autumn's sunset glowing, 
He sleeps, —still looking to the we t, 

Beneath the dark wood shadow, 
As if he still would see the sun 

Sink down on wave and meadow. 

Bard, Sage, and Tribune ! — in himself 

All moods of mind contrasting, — 
The tenderest wail of human woe, 

The scorn-like lightning blasting ; 
The pathos which from rival eyes 

Unwilling tears could summon, 
The stinging taunt, the fiery burst 

Of hatred scarcely human ! 

Mirth, sparkling like a diamond shower, 
From lips of life-long sadness ; 

( 'liar picturings of majestic thought 
Upon a ground of madness ; 

And over all Romance and Song 
A classic beauty throwing, 



82 



DEMOCRACY. 



And laurelled Clio at his side 
Ber storied pages showing. 

All parties feared bim : each in turn 

Beheld its schemes disjointed, 
\ - right or lefl his Ea bal ;lan 

Ami sped ral finger pointed. 
Sworn I"'- of < !ant, he smote it down 

With trenchant wit unsparing, 
And, mocking, rent with ruthless hand 

The robe Pretence was wearing. 

Too honest or too proud to feign 

A love lie never cherished, 
Beyond Virginia's borderline 

His patriotism perished, 
While others hailed in distant skies 

Our eagle's dusky pinion, 
He onlj saw the mountain bird 

Stoop o'er his Old Dominion ! 

Still through each change of fortune strange, 

Racked aerve, and brain all burning, 
His loving faith in Mother-land 

Knew never shade of tinning ; 
By Britain's lakes, by Neva's wave 

Whatever sky was o'er him, 
He heard her rivers' rushing sound, 

Her blue peaks rose before him. 

He held his slaves, yet made withal 

No false and vain pretences, 
Nor paid a lying priest to seek 

For Scriptural defences. 
His harshest words of proud rebuke, 

His bitterest taunt and scorning, 
Fell tire like on the Northern brow 

That bent to him in fawning. 

He held his slaves ; yet kept the while 

His reverence for the Human ; 
In the dark vassals of his will 

He saw but Man and Woman ! 
No hunter of God's out raged poor 

His Roanoke valley entered; 
No trader in the souls of men 

Across his threshold ventured. 

And when the old and wearied man 

Lay down for his last sleeping, 
And at his side, a slave no nun''. 

His brother-man stood weeping, 
His latest thought, his latest breath, 

To Freedom's duty giving, 
With failing tongue and trembling hand 

The dying blest the living. 

O, never bore his ancient State 

A truer son or braver ! 
None trampling with a calmer scorn 

On foreign hate or favor. 
Ee '. n w her faults, yet never stooped 

His proud anil nianh Eeeling 
To poor excuses of the wrong 

Or meanness of concealing. 

But none beheld with cleaver eye 

The plague-spot o'er her spreading, 
None heard more sure the steps of Doom 

Along her fut me i reading. 
For her as for himself he spake, 

When, his gaunt frame upbracing, 
lb- traced with dying hand " REMORSE ! " 

And perished in tin- bracing. 

As from the grave where Henry sleeps, 
from Vernon's weeping willow. 

And from the grassy pall which hides 
The Sage of Montieello, 



So from the leaf strewn burial-stone 

Of Randolph's lowly dwelling, 
Virginia ! o'er thy land of slaves 

A warning voice is swelling! 

And hark ! from thy deserted fields 

Are sadder warnings spoken, 
from quenched hearths, where thy exiled sons 

Their household gods have broken. 
The curse is on thee,— wolves for men, 

And briers for corn-sheaves giving ! 
O, more than all thy dead renown 

Were now one hero living ! 



DEMOCRACY. 

All things whatsoever ye would that men should .In to 

you, do ye> even so to them. — Matthew vii. |-j. 

Bearer of Freedom's holy light, 
Breaker of Slavery's chain ami rod, 

The foe of all which pains the sight, 
Or wounds the generous ear of God ! 

Beautiful yet thy temples l-ise, 

Though there profaning gifts are thrown ; 
And tires unkiiulled of the skies 

Are glaring round thy altar-stone. 

Still sacred,— though thy name be breathed 
By those whose hearts thy truth deride ; 

And garlands, plucked from thee, are wreathed 
Around the haughty brows of Pride. 

O, ideal of my boyhood's time ! 

The faith in which my father stood, 
Even when the sons of Lust.and Crime 

Had stained thy peaceful courts with blood ! 

Still to those courts my footsteps turn, 

For through the mists which darken there, 

I see the flame of Freedom burn, — 
The Kebla of the patriot's prayer ! 

The generous feeling, pure and warm, 
Which owns the rights of nil divine, — 

The pitying heart, — the helping arm, — 
The prompt self-sacrifice, — are thine. 

Beneath thy broad, impartial eye. 

How fade the lines of caste and birth ! 

How equal in their suffering lie 
The groaning multitudes of earth ! 

Still to a stricken brother true, 

Whatever clime hath nurtured him ; 

As stooped to heal the wounded Jew 
The worshipper of Gerizim. 

By misery unrepelled, unawed 
By pomp or power, thou scest a Man 

In prince or peasant, — slave or lord, — 
Pale priest, or swarthy artisan. 

Through all disguise, form, place, or name, 
Beneath t he flaunting robes of sin, 

Through poverty and squalid shame, 
Thou lookest on the man within. 

On man, as man, retaining yet, 

Howe'er debased, and soiled, and dim, 

The crown upon his forehead set, — 
The immortal gift- of Cod to him. 

And there is reverence in thy look ; 

f'oi that, trail form which mortals wear 
The Spirit of the Holiest took, 

And veiled his perfect brightness there. 



TO RONGE.— CHALKLEY HALL. 



Not from the shallow babbling fount 

Of vain philosophy bhou art; 
He who of old on Syria's mount 

Thrilled, warmed, by turns, the listener's 
heart, 

In holy words which cannot die, 
In thoughts which an I l< aned to know, 

Proclaimed thy message from on high, — 
Thy mission to a world of woe. 

That voice's echo hath not died ! 

From the blue lake of Galilee, 
And Tabor's lonely mountain-side. 

It calls a struggling world to thee. 

Thy name and watchword o'er this land 

I hear in every breeze that stirs, 
And round a thousand altars stand 

Thy banded party worshippers. 

Not to these altars of a day, 

At party's call, my gift I bring ; 
But on thy olden shrine I lay 

A freeman's dearest offering : 

The voiceless utterance of his will, — 
His pledge to Freedom and to Truth, 

That manhood's heart remembers still 
The homage of his generous youth. 
F,l< etion Day, 184o. 



TO RONGE 

Strike home, strong-hearted man ! Down to the 

root 
Of old oppression sink the Saxon steel. 
Thy work is to hew down. In God's name then 
Put nerve into thy task. Let other men 
Plant, as they may, that better tree whose fruit 
The wounded bosom of the Church shall heal. 
Be thou the image-breaker. Let thy blows 
Fail heavy as the Suabina's iron hand, 
On crown or crosier, which shall interpose 
Between thee and the weal of Fatherlan 1. 
Leave creeds to closet idlers. .First of all, 
Shake thou all German dream-land with the fall 
Of that accursed tree, whose evil trunk 
Was spared of old by Erfurt's stalwart monk. 
Fight not with ghosts and shadows. Let us hear 
The snap of chain-links. Let our gladdened ear 
Catch the pale prisoner's welcome, as the light 
Follows thy axe-stroke, through his cell of night. 
Be faithful to both worlds ; nor think to feed 
Earth's starving millions with the husks of creed. 
S rvant of Him wdiose mission high and holy 
Was to the \\ ranged, the sorrowing, and the lowly, 
Thrust not his Eden promise from our sphere, 
Distant and dim beyond the blue sky's span ; 
Like him of Patmos, see it, now and here, — 
The New Jerusalem comes down to man ! 
Be warned by Luther's error. Nor like him. 
When the roused Teuton dashes from his limb 
The rusted chain of ages, help to bind 
His hands for whom thou claim'st the freedom of 

the mind ! 



CHALKLEY HALL. 39 

How bland and sweet the greeting of tin 

To him who 
From crowded streel and red wall's weary gleam, 
Till far behind him like a hideous dream 

The close dark city lies ! 



while (lie market murmurs, while men 
fchroi 
The marble floor 
()■ Mammon's altar, from the crush and din 
Of the world's madness Let me gather ill 
My better thoughts once mi 

O, once again ie\ Lve, while on my ear 

The cry of (Jain 
And low hoarse hum of Traffic die away, 
Ye blessed memories of my early day 

Like sere grass wet with rain !— 

Once more let God's green earth and sunset air 

Old feelings waken ; 
Through weary years of toil and strife and ill, 
O, let me feel that my good angel still 

Hath not his trust forsaken. 

And well do time and place befit my mood : 

Beneath the arms 
Of this embracing wood, a good man made 
His home, like Abraham resting in the shade 

Of Manure's lonely palms. 

Here, rich with autumn gifts of countless years, 

The virgin soil 
Turned from the share he guided, and in rain 
And summer sunshine throve the fruits and grain 

Which blessed his honest toil. 

Here, from his voyages an the stormy seas, 

Weary and worn, 
He came to meet his children and to bless 
The Giver of all good in thankfulness 

And praise for his return. 

And here his neighbors gathered in to greet 

Their friend again, 
Safe from the wave arid the destroying gales, 
Which reap untimely green Bermuda's vales, 

Air I vex the' Carib main. 

To hear the good man tell of simple truth, 

Sown in an hour 
OP weakness in some far-off Indian isle, 
From the parched bosom of a barren soil, 

Raised up in lite and power : 

How at tliose gatherings in Barbadian vales, 

A tendering love 
Came o'er him, like the gentle rain from heaven, 
And words of titness to his lips were given, 

And strength as from above : 

How the sad captive listened to the Word, 

Until his chain 
Grew lighter, and his wounded spirit felt 
Tlie healing balm of consolation melt 

Upon its life-long pain : 

How the armed warrior sat him down to hear 

Of Peace and Truth, 
And the proud rul< r and his Creole dame, 
Jewelled an in her beauty came, 

And fair and bright-eyed youth. 

O, far away beneath New England's sky, 

Even when a boy. 
Following my plough by Merrimack's green*shore, 
His simple record I have pondered o'er 

With deep and quiet joy. 

le, in sunset glory warm, — 

Its woods around. 
Its still stream winding on in light and shade, 
Its soft, green meadows and its upland glade, — 

To me is holy ground. 



84 



TO J. P.— A DREAM OF SUMMER. 



\ n .| dean t Ear bhan haunts where Genius keeps 

His vigils still ; 
Than that where Avon's boti of song Ls laid, 
Of Van <"' i caroh's shade, 

Or Virgil's laurelled hill. 

To bh graj walls of Eallen Paraclete, 

To Juliet's urn, 

, nh i snto's orange -rove. 
Where Tapso sang, lei young R ance and Love 

L ke brother pilgrims i urn. 

But, here a deeper and serener charm 

To all is gn ''ii ; 
And blessed memories of the faithful dead 
O'erwood and valeand meadow-stream liave shed 

The holy hues of Heaven ! 



TO J. P. 

Not as a poor requital of the joy 

With- which my childhood heard that lay of 
thine, 

Which, like an echo of the song divine 
At Bethlehem breathed above the Holy Boy, 

Bore to my ear the Airs of Palestine, — 
Not to the poet, but the ma i 1 bring 
In friendship's fearless trust my offering: 
How much it lacks I feel, and thou wilt see. 
Yet well I know that thou hast deemed with me 
Life all too earnest, and its time too short 
For dreamy ease and Fancy's graceful sport ; 

And girded for thy constant strife with wrong, 
Like Nehemiah fighting while he wrought 

The broken walls of Zion, even thy song 
Hath a rude martial tone, a blow in every thought ! 



THE CYPRESS-TREE OF CEYLON. 

[Ibn Batuta. the celebrated Mussulman traveller of 
the fourteenth century, speaks <>f a cypress-tree in Cey 
Ion, universally held sacred by the natives, the leaves of 
which were said to Call only at certain intervals, and he 
who had the happiness to find and eat one of them was 
restored, at once, h> youth and vigor. The traveller saw 
several venerable JoGEES, or saints, sitting silent and 
mot ionless under the tree, patiently awaiting the falling 
of a leaf.] 

They sat in silent watchfulness 

The sacred cypress-tree about, 
And, from beneath old wrinkled brows, 

Their failing eyes looked out. 

Gray Age and Sickness waiting there 

Through weary night and lingering day, — 

Grim as the idols at their side, 
And motionless as they. 

Unheeded in the boughs above 
The song of Ceylon's birds was sweet; 

Unseen of them the island flowers 
Bloomed brightly at their feet. 

O'er them the tropic night-storm swept, 
The- thunder clashed on rock and hill; 

The cloud-fire on their eyeballs blazed, 
Yet there they waited still ! 

What was the world without to them ? 

The .Moslem's sunset, call, —the dance 
Of Ceylon's maids, — the passing gleam 

Of battle-flag and lance? 



They waited for that falling leaf 

<>i' which the wandering Jogees sing: 
Which lends once more to wintryage 

The greenness of its spring. 

( ). if these poor and blinded ones 

In trustful patience wait t o feel 
O'er torpid pulse and failing limb 

A youthful freshness steal ; 

Shall we, who sit beneath that Tree 
Whose healing ha\ es of life are shed, 

In answer to the breath of prayer, 
Upon the waiting head ; 

Not to restore our failing forms, 

And build the spirit's broken shrine, 
I'.ut on the fainting sun. to shed 
A light and life divine ; 

Shall we grow weary in our watch, 

And murmur at the long delay . 
Impatient of our Father's time 

And his appointed way . 

Or shall the stir of outward things 
Allure and claim the Christian's eye, 

When on the heathen watcher's ear 
Their powerless murmurs die ? 

Alas ! a deeper test of faith 

Than prison cell or martyr's stake, 

The self-abasing watchfulness 
Of silent prayer may make. 

We gird us bravely to rebuke 

Our erring brother in the wrong, — 

And in the ear of Pride and Power 
Our warning voice is strong. 

Easier to smite with Peter's sword 

Than " watch one hour " in humbling prayer. 
Life's 1' great things," like the Syrian lord, 

Our hearts can do and dare. 

But oh ! we shrink from Jordan's side, 
From waters which alone can save ; 

And murmur for Abana's banks 
And Pharpar's brighter wave. 

O Thou, who in the garden's shade 
Didst wake thy weary ones again, • 

Who slumbered at that fearful hour 
Forgetful of thy pain ; 

Bend o'er us now, as over them. 

And set our sleep-bonnd spirits free, 

Nor leave us slumbering in the watch 
Our souls should keep with Thee ! 



A DREAM OF SUMMER. 

BLAND as the morning breath of June 

The southwest breezes play ; 
And. through its haze, the winter noon 

Situs warm as summer's day. 
The snow-plumed Angel of the North 

Has dropped his icy spear ; 
Again the mossy earth looks forth, 

Again the streams gush clear. 

The fox his hillside cell forsakes, 
The muskrat leaves his nook, 

The bluebird in the meadow brakes 
Is singing with the brook. 



A DREAM OF SUMMER.— TO 



85 



"Rear up, O Mother Natvre ! " cry 
I tird, In eeze, and si reamlel 

'' Our winter \ oicea proph 
Of Bummer days to th 

Hi hose winters of the soul, 

I '■ | mi i bla bs and drear 
O'erswept from Memory's frozen pole, 

Will sunnj daj s appear. 
Iv\ u ing 1 [opi and Faith, they show 

The soul its living powers, 
And how beneath t lie winter's snow 

Lie germs of summer flowers ! 

The Night is mother of the Day 

The Winter of the Spring, 
And ever upon old Decay 

The greenest mosses cling. 
Behind the cloud the starlight lurks, 

Through showers the sunbeams fall ; 
For God, who loveth all his works, 

Has left his Hope with all ! 
4/ fi 1st month, 1847. 



TO , 

WITH V COPT OF WOOLMAN'S JOURNAL. 

" Get the writings of John Woolman bj heart. 11 En 
aays of i 

MaIDEN ! with the fair brown tresses 

Shading o'er thy dreamy eye, 
Floating on thy thoughtful forehead 

Cloud wreaths of its sky. 

Youthful years and maiden beauty, 
Joy with them should still abide, — 

Instinct take the place of Duty, 
Love, not Reason, guide. 

Ever in the New rejoicing, 

Kindly beckoning back the Old, 
Turning, with the gift of Midas, 

All things into gold. 

And the passing shades of sadness 
Wearing even a welcome guise, 

As, when some bright lake lies open 
To the sunny skies, 

Every wing of bird above it, 

Every light cloud floating on, 
Glitters like that flashing mirror 

In the self-same sun. 

But upon thy youthful forehead 

Something like a shadow lies ; 
And a serious soul is looking 

From thy earnest eyes. 

With an early introversion, 

Through the forms of outward things, 
Seeking for the subtle essence, 

And the hidden springs. 

Deeper than the gilded surface 

Hath thy wakeful vision seen, 
Farther than the narrow present 

Have thy journeyings been. 

Thou hast midst Life's empty noises 
Heard the solemn steps of Time, 

And the low mysterious voices 
Of another clime. 

All the mystery of Being 

Hath upon thy spirit pressed, — 

Thoughts which, like the Deluge wanderer, 
Find no place of rest : 



That which •< ered, 

That which Zeno heard with awe. 

And the star rapl Zoroaster 
In his night-watch saw. 

Prom the doubt and darkness springing 

Of the dim, uncertain Fast, 
M • ing bo the dark still shadows 

( >'er the Future cast, 

Barlj hath Life's mighty question 
Thrilled within thy heart of youth, 

With a deep and strong beseeching: 
What and where is Truth V 

Hollow creed and ceremo 

Whence the ancient life hath fled, 

Idle faith unknown to action, 
Dull and cold and dead. 

Oracles, whose wire-worked meanings 

Only wake a quiet scorn, — 
Not from these thy seeking spirit 

Hath its answer drawn. 

But, like some tired child at even, 
On thy mother Nature's breast, 

Thou, methinks, art vainly seeking 
Truth, and peace, and rest. 

O'er that mother's rugged features 
Thou art throwing Fancy's veil, 

Light and soft as woven moonbeams, 
Beautiful and frail ! 

O'er the rough chart of Existence, 
Rocks of sin and wastes of woe, 

Soft airs breathe, and green leaves tremble, 
And cool fountains How. 

And to thee an answer cometh 
From the earth and from the sky, 

And to thee the hills and waters 
And the stars reply. 

But a soul-sufficing answer 

Hath no outward origin ; 
More than Nature's many voices 

May be heard within. 

Even as the great Augustine 

Questioned earth and sea and sky. 4 " 

And the dusty tomes of learning 
And old poesy. 

But his earnest spirit needed 

More than outward Nature taught, — 

More than blest the poet's visum 
Or the sage's thought. 

Only in the gathered silence 

Of a calm and waiting frame 
Light and wisdom as from Heaven 

To the seeker came. 

Not to ease and aimless quiet 
Doth that inward answer tend, 

But to works of love and duty 
As our being's end, — 

Not to idle dreams and trances, 
Length of face, and solemn tone, 

But to Faith, in daily striving 
And performance shown. 

Earnest toil and strong endeavor 

Of a spirit which within 
Wrestles with familiar evil 

And besetting sin ; 



80 



LEGGETT'S MONUMENT.— DEDICATION. 



And without, with tireless vigor, 

Stead] heart, and weapon .strong, 
Jn the power of truth assailing 

Bverj torin of v, i 

Guided thus, how passing lovely 
Is the track oi woolman's Eeet ! 

And ins brief and simple record 
1 low serenely sweet, ! 

O'er life's humbli st duties throwing 
Lighi the earthling never knew, 

Freshening .dl its dark waste places 
As with Hermon's dew. 

All which glows in Pascal's pages, — 
All which sainted I ,111011 sought, 

Or the blue eyed ( Jerman ltahel 
Half-unconscious taught :— 

Beauty, such as Goethe pictured. 
Such as Shelley dreamed of, shed 

Living warmth and starry brightness 
Round that poor man's head. 

Not a vain and cold ideal, 

Not a poet's dream alone, 
But a presence warm and real, 

Seen and felt and known. 

When the red right-hand of slaughter 
Moulders with the steel it swung, 

When the name of seer and poet 
Dies on Memory's tongue, 

All bright thoughts and pure shall gather 

Round that meek and suffering one, — 
Glorious, like the seer-seen angel 

Standing in the sun ! 

Take the good man's book and ponder 
What its pages say to thee, — 

Blessed as the hand of healing 
May its lesson be. 

If it only serves to strengthen 
Yearnings for a higher good, 



For the fount of living waters 
And diviner food ; 

It' tlie pride of human reason 
Peels its meek ami still rebuke, 

Qua iling like 1 he eye oi' Peter 
From (lie Just One's look ! — 

It' with readier ear I lion he. dest 
What the Inward Teacher aith, 

Listening with ;i willing spirit 
And a childlike faith, — 

Thou mayst live to bless the giver, 
Who, himself but frail and weak, 

Would at least (he highest welfare 
Of another si ek ; 

And his gift, though poor and lowly 
It may seem In ol her eyes, 

Yet may prove an angel holy 
In a pilgrim's guise. 



LEGGETT'S MONUMENT. 

"Ye build the tombs of the prophets." — Holy Writ, 

Yes, — pile the marble o'er him ! It is well 

That ye who mocked him in his long stem 

strife, 
And planted in the pathway of his life 
The ploughshares of your hatred hot from hell, 
Who clamored down the bold reformer when 
He pleaded for his captive fellow-men, 
Who spurned him in the market-place, and 
sought 
Within thy walls, St. Tammany, to bind 
In party chains the free and honest thought, 

The angel utterance of an upright mind, 
Well is it now'that o'er Ids grave ye raise 
The stony tribute ol your tardy praise, 
For not alone that pile shall tell to Fame 
Of the brave heart beneath, but of the buildi is 
shame ! 



SONGS OF LABOR, 

AND OTHER POEMS. 



1S50. 



DEDICATION. 

I won.n the gifl I oiler here 

Might graces from thy favor take, 
And. seen through friendship's atmosphere, 
On softened lines and coloring, wear 

The unaccustomed light of beauty, for thy sake. 

Few leaves of Fancy's spring remain : 

Hut what I have I give to thee, — 
The o'er sunned bloom id' summer's plain. 
And paler flowers, the latter rain 
Calls from the westering slope of life's autumnal 
lea. 



Above the fallen groves of green, 

Where youth's enchanted forest stood, 
Dry root, and mossed trunk between, 
A sober after-growth is seen. 

As springs the pine where falls the gay-l< 

. maple wood ! 



Yet birds will sing, and breezes play 

Their leaf harps in the sombre tree ; 
And through the bleak and wintry day 
It keeps its steady green alway, — 
So, even my after-thoughts may have a charm 
for thee. 



THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 



87 



Art's perfect forms no moral need, 
And beauty is its own excuse ; 41 
But for the dull and fiowerless weed 
Some healing virtue stiil must plead, 
And the rough ore must tiud its honors in its 



So haply these, my simple lays 

Of homely toil, may serve to show 
The orchard bloom and fcasselled maize 
That skirt and gladden duty's ways, 
The unsung beauty hid life's common things 
below. 



Haply from them the toiler, bent 

Above his forge or plough, may gain, 
A manlier spirit of content. 
And feel that life is wisest spent 
Where the strong working hand makes strong the 
working brain. 

The doom which to the guilty pair 
Without the walls of Eden came, 
Transforming sinless ease to care 
And rugged toil, no more shall bear 
The burden of old crime, or mark of primal 
shame. 

A blessing now, — a curse no more ; 

Since He, whose name we breathe with 
awe, 
The coarse mechanic vesture wore, — 
A poor man toiling with the poor, 
In labor, as in prayer, f ultilliiig the same law. 



THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 

The sky is ruddy in the east, 

The earth is gray below, 
And, spectral in the river-mist, 

The ship's white timbers show. 
Then let the sounds of measured stroke 

And grating saw begin ; 
The broad-axe to the gnarled oak, 

The mallet to the pin ! 

Hark ! — roars the bellows, blast on blast, 

The sooty smithy jars, 
And fire-sparks, rising far and fast, 

Are fading with the stars. 
All day for us the smith shall stand 

Beside that flashing forge ; 
All day for us his heavy hand 

The groaning anvil scourge. 



From far-off hills, the panting team 

For us is toiling near ; 
For us the raftsmen down the stream 

Their island barges steer. 
Rings out for us the axe-man's stroke 

In forests old and still, — 
For us the century-circled oak 

Falls crashing down his hill. 

Up ! — up ! — in nobler toil than ours 
No craftsmen bear a part : 

We make of Nature's giant powers 
The slaves of human Art. 




The ship's white Viinliers show." 



THE SHOEMAKERS. 



I,:i\ rib to rib and beam to beam, 

Ami drive I h free ; 

Nor fail bless joint nor 3 av oing seam 

Shall tempi the si arching sea ! 

Where'er the keel of our good ship 

The sea's rough field shall plough, — 
Where'er her tossing spars shall drip 

With -.-lit. spraj caughl below, — 
Thai ship musl heed her master's heck, 

Her helm obej his hand. 
And seamen tread her reeling deck 

As if they trod the land. 

Her oaken rihs the vulture-heak 

( )f .Northern ice nia\ peel ; 
The sunken rock and coral peak 
May urate along her keel ; 

And know we well the painted shell 

We give to wind and «a\ e, 
Musi Boat, t he sailor's citadel, 

Or sink, the sailer's grave ! 

Ho ! — strike away the bars and blocks, 

And set the good ship free ! 
Why Lingers on these dusty rocks 

The young bride of the sea ? 
Look ! how she moves adown the grooves, 

In graceful beauty now ! 
How lowly on the breast she loves 

Sinks down her virgin prow ! 

Cod bless her ! wheresoe'er the breeze 

Her snowy wing shall fan, 
Aside the frozen Hebrides, 

Or sultry Himlostan ! 
Where'er, in mart or on the main, 

With peaceful flag unfurled, 
She helps to wind the silken chain 

Of commerce round the world ! 

Speed on the ship ! — Rut let her bear 

No mechandise of sin, 
No groaning cargo of despair 

Her roomy held within; 
No Lethean drug for Eastern lands, 

Nor poison-draught for ours ; 
But honest fruits of toiling bands 

And Nature's sun and showers. 

Be hers the Prairie's goldi n grain, 

The Desert's golden sand, 
The clustered fruits of sunny Spain, 

The spice of Morning-land ! 
Her pathway on the open main 

May blessings follow free, 
And glad hearts welcome back again 

Her white sails from the sea ! 



THE SHOEMAKERS. 

Ho! workers of the old time styled 

The (Sen tie Craft of Leather ! 
Young brothers of the ancient guild, 

Stand forth oliee inure together ! 
Call out, again your long array. 

In the olden merry manner ! 
Once more, on gay St. Crispin's day, 

Fling out your blazoned banner ! 

Rap rap! upon the well-worn stone 

How falls the polished hammer! 
Ha 1 ), rap ! t he measured sound has grown 
A quick and merry clamor. 



Now shape the sole ! now deftly curl 

'The glossy \ amp around it . 
Ami hless tlie while the bright-eyed girl 

Whose gentle fing< rs bound it ! 

For you, along the Spanish main 
A hundred keels are ploughing ; 

For \ on, the Indian on t he plain 

His lasxi coil is throwing ; 
For you, deep glens with hemlock dark 

The w Iman's fire is lighting ; 

For you, upon the oak's gray hark, 

The woodman's axe is smiting. 

For you, from Carolina's pine 

The rosin-gum is stealing; 
For you, the dark-eyed Florentine 

Her silken skein is reeling ; 
For you, the dizzy goatherd roams 

His rugged Alpine ledges ; 
For you, round all her shepherd homes, 

Bloom England's thorny hedges. 

The foremost still, by day or night, 

( (n moated mound or heather. 
Where'er the need of trampled right 

Brought toiling men together ; 
Where the free burgh< rs from the wall 

Defied the mail-clad master, 
Than yours, at Freedom's trumpet-call, 

No craftsmen rallied faster. 

Let foplings sneer, let fools deride, — 

- Ye heed no idle scorner ; 

Free hands and hearts are still your pride, 

And duty done, your honor. 
Ye dare to trust, for honest fame, 

The jury Time empanels. 
And leave to truth each noble name 

Which glorifies your annals. 

Thy songs, Han Sachs, are living yet,, 

In strong and hearty German ; 
And Bloomfield's lay, and Gifford's wit, 

And patriot fame of Sherman ; 
Still from his book, a mystic seer. 

The soid of Behmen teaches, 
And England's priestcraft shakes to hear 

Of Fox's leathern breeches. 

The foot is yours ; where'er it falls, 

It treads your well-wrought leather, 
On earthen floor, in marble halls, 

On carpet, or on heather. 
Still there the sweetest charm is found 

Of matron grace or vestal's, 
As Hebe's foot bore nectar round 

Among the old celestials ! 

Rap, rap ! — your stout and bluff brogan, 

With footsteps slow and Wear\ , 
Ma\ wander where the sky's blue span 

Shuts down upon the prairie. 
On Beauty's foot your slippers glance, 

By Saratoga's fountains, 
Or twinkle down the summer dame 

Bi death the Crystal Mountains! 

The red brick to the mason's hand, 

The lirown earth to the tiller's. 
The shoe in yours shall wealth command 

Like fairy Cinderella's ! 
As they who shunned the household maid 

Beheld the crown upon her. 
So all shall se ■ \ oui-'toii repaid 

With hearth and home ami honor. 

Then let the toast be freely quaffed, 
In water cool and brimming, — 



THE DROVERS. -THE FISHERMEN. 



89 



" All honor to the good old < 'raft. 

Its merry men and women 1 " 
Call out again your long arraj , 

In the old time's pleasant manner: 
Once more, on gay St. Crispin's day, 

Fling out his blazone 1 banner ! 



THE DROVERS. 

THROUGH heat and cold, and shower and sun. 

Still onward oheerly driving! 
There 's life alone in duty done, 

And rest alone in striving. 
I lut see! the day is closing cool, 

The woods are dim before us; 
The white fog of the wayside pool 

Is fuelling slowly o'er us. 

The night is falling, comrades mine, 

Our footsore beasts are weary. 
And through yon elms the tavern sign 

Looks out upon us cheery. 
The landlord beckons from his door, 

His beechen fire is glowing ; 
These ample barns, with feed in store, 

Are tilled to overflowing. 

From many a valley frowned across 

By luows of rugged mountains ; 
From hillsides where, through spongy moss, 

Gush out the river fountains ; 
From quiet farm-fields, green and low, 

And bright with blooming clover; 
From vales of corn the wandering crow 

No richer hovers over ; 

Day after day our way lias been, 

O'er many a hill and hollow; 
By lake and stream, by wood and glen, 

Our stately drove we follow. 
Through dust-clouds rising thick and dun, 
. As smoke of battle o'er us, 
Their white horns glisten in the sun, 

Like plumes and crests before us. 

We see them slowly climb the hill, 

As slow behind it sinking ; 
Or, thronging close, from roadside rill, 

Or sunny lakelet, drinking. 
Now crowding in the narrow road, 

In thick and struggling masses, 
They glare upon the teamster's load, 

Or rattling coach that passes. 

Anon, with toss of horn and tail, 

And paw of hoof, and bellow, 
They leap some farmer's broken pale, 

O'er meadow-close or fallow. 
Forth comes the startled goodman ; forth 

Wife, children, house-dog, sally. 
Till once more on their dusty path 

The baffled truants rally. 

We drive no starvelings, scraggy grown. 

Loose-legged, and ribbed and bony, 
Like those who grind their noses down 

On pastures bare and stony, — 
Lank oxen, rough as Indian dogs, 

And cows too lean for shadows, 
Disputing feebly with the frogs 

The crop of saw-grass meadows ! 

In our good drove, so sleek and Eair, 

No bones of leanness rattle ; 
No tottering hide-bound ghosts are there, 

Or Pharaoh's evil cattle. 



Each stately bei ve bespeaks the hand 
That fed him unrepining; 

The fatness of a goodly land 
In eacli nun hide is shining. 

We've sought them where, in warmest nooks, 
The freshest feed is growing, 

By sweetest springs and clearest brooks 

Through honej tickle flowing ; 
Wherever hillsides, sloping south, 

An.' brighl \\ ith earlj grasses, 
Or, tracking green the lowland's drouth, 

The mountain streamlet passes. 

But now the day is closing cool, 

The woods tire dim before us, 
The white log of the wayside pool 

Is creeping slowly o'er us. 
The cricket to the frog's bassoon 

His shrillest time is keeping ; 
The sickle of yon setting moon 

The meadow-mist is reaping. 

The night is falling, comrades mine, 

Our footsore beasts tire weary, 
And through yon elms the tavern sign 

Looks out upon us cheery. 
To-morrow, eastward with our charge 

We '11 go to meet the dawning, 
Ere yet the pines of Kearsarge 

Have seen the sun of morning. 

When snow-flakes o'er the frozen earth, 

Instead of birds, ate flitting ; 
When children throng the glowing hearth, 

And quiet wives are knitting ; 
While in the fire-light strong and clear 

Young eyes of pleasure glisten, 
To tales of all we see and hear 

The ears of home shall listen. 

By many a Northern lake and hill, 

From many a mountain pasture, 
Shall Fancy play the Drover still, 

And speed the long night faster. 
Then let us on, through shower and sun, 

And heat and cold, be driving ; 
There 's life alone in duty done, 

And rest alone in striving. 



THE FISHERMEN. 

Hurrah ! the seaward breezes 

Sweep down the bay amain ; 
Heave up, my lads, the anchor ! 

Run up the sail again ! 
Leave to the lubber landsmen 

The rail-car and the steed ; 
The stars of heaven shall guide us, 

The breath of heaven shall speed. 

From the hill-top looks the steeple, 

Ami the lighthouse from the sand ; ' 
And the scattered pines are waving 

Their farewell from the land. 
One glance, my lads, behind us. 

For the Immes we leave one sigh, 
Ere we take the change and chances 

Of the ocean and the sky. 

Now, brothers, for the icebergs 

Of frozen Labrador, 
Floating spectral in the moonshine, 

Along the low, black shore ! 
Where like snow the gannet's feathers 

On Brador's rocks are shed, 



DO 



THE IIUSKEltS. 




"Now, brothers, for the id 



And t lie noisy iihiit are Hying, 
Like black scuds, overhead ; 

Where in mist the rock is biding, 

And the sharp red' lurks below, 
And the wind. 1 squall smites in summer, 

And the autumn tempests blow ; 
Where, through gray and rolling vapor, 

Prom evening unto muni, 
A thousand boats are hailing, 

Horn answering unto born. 

Hurrah ! I'm- the Red Island, 

With the white cress on its crown ! 
Hurrah ! for Mecca! ina, 

And its mountains hare and brown ! 
Where the Caribou's tall antlers 

t iVr t he dwarf woo. I freeh toss. 
And the footstep of the Mickmack 

Has no sound upon the moss. 

There we 'il drop our lines, and gather 

Old ( »cean's treasures in, 
Where'er the mottled mackerel 

Turns up a, steel dark I'm. 
The sea 's our held of harvest, 

Its scaly tribes our grain ; 
We 'II reap the I leming waters 

As at home l hej reap I he plain ! 

Our wet hands spread the carpet, 

And lighl the heart h of home ; 
Prom our fish, as in the old time, 

.'The sil\ er coin shall come. 
As the demon lied the chamber 

Where the fish ofTobil lay, 

So ours from all our dwellings 

Shall frighten Wanl awaj . 

Though the mist upon our jackets 

I n t In- hit ter air congeals, 
And our lines wind still 'and slowly 

Prom off tin- frozen reels ; 
Though I he fog he dark around us, 

\ nd I In- storm blow high and loud, 
We will whistle down tile wild wind, 

And laugh beneath I lie cloud ! 



Ill the darkness as in daylight, 

< )n t he water as on land, 
(hid's eye is looking on us, 

And beneath us is his hand ! 
Heath will find us soon or later, 

( )n t he deck or in the cot ; 
And we cannot meet him better 

Than in working out our lot,. 

Hurrah !— hurrah ! — the west -wind 
Comes freshening down the hay, 

The rising sails are tilling, — 
Give way, my lads, give way ! 

Leave the coward landsman clinging 
'I'o the dull earth, like a. weed, — 

The stars of hea\ell shall guide us. 

The breath of heaven shall speed ! 



THE HUSKERS. 

It was late in mild October, and the long autum- 
nal rain 

Had left the summer harvest, fields all green with 

j^rass again ; 
The first sharp frosts had fallen, leaving all the 

woodlands gaj 

With the hues of summer's rainbow, or tin- mea 

dow-flowers of May. 

Through a thin, dry mist, that morning, the sn.i 

rose broad and red, 
At first a rayless disk of lire, he brightened as he 

sped ; 

m his noontide glory fell chastened and 

subdued, 
On the cornfields and the orchards, and softly 
pictured wood. 

And all that quiei afternoon, slow sloping to the 

night, 
lb- wove with golden shuttle the haze with yellow 

bight; 
Slant in" through the painted beeches, be glorified 

tie- lull ;' 
Ami, beneath it, pond and meadow lay brighter, 
greener still. 



THE CORN SOXG. 



91 



And shouting hoys in woodland haunts caught Urged by the good host's daughter, a maiden 

glimpses of that sky, young and fair, 

Flecked hy the many-tinted leaves, and laughed, Lilting to light her sweet blue eyes and pride of 

they knew not why ; soft brown hair, 

And school-girls, gay with aster-flowers, beside The master of the village school, sleek of hair and 

the meadow brooks, smooth of tongue, 

Mingled the glow of autumn with the sunshine To the quaint tune of some old psalm, a huskLng- 

of sweet looks. ballad sung. 

From spire and barn looked westerly the patient 

weathercocks ; 

But even the birches on the hill stood motionless 
as rocks. 

No sound was in the woodlands, save the squir- 
rel's dropping shell, 

And the yellow leaves among the boughs, low 
rustling as they fell. 



The summer grains were harvested ; the stubble- 
fields lay dry, 

Where June winds rolled, in light and shade, the 
pale green waves of rye; 

But still, on gentle hill-slopes, in valleys fringed 
with wood, 

Ungathereil, bleaching in the sun, the heavy corn 
crop stood. 

Bent low, by autumn's wind and rain, through 
husks that, dry and sere, 

Unfolded from their ripened charge, shone out 
the yellow ear ; 

Beneath, the turnip lay concealed, in many a 
verdant fold, 

And glistened in the slanting light the pump- 
kin's sphere of gold. 

There wrought the busy harvesters ; and many a. 

creaking wain 
More slowly to the long barn-floor its load of husk 

an I grain ; 
Till broad and red, as when he rose, the sun sank 

down, at last, 
And like a merry guest's farewell, the day in 

brightness pas 

An I lo! as through the western pines, on mea- 
dow, stream, and pond, 

Flamed the red radiance of a sky, set all afire be- 
yond, 

Slowly o'er the eastern sea-bluffs a milder glory 

shone. 
And the sunset and the moonrise were mingled 

into one ! 

As thus into the quiet night the twilight lapsed 

away, 
And deeper in the brightening moon the tranquil 

shadows lay ; 
Prom many a brown old farm-house, and hamlet 

without name. 
Their milking and their home-tasks done, the 

merry huskers came. 

Swung o'er the heaped-up harvest, from pitch- 
forks in the mow, 

Shone dimly down the lanterns on the plea ant 

scene below ; 
The growing pile of husks behind, the golden ears 

before, 
And laughing eyes and busy hands and brown 

cheeks glimmering o'er. 

Half hidden in a quiet nook, serene of look and 
hi .1 rl 

Talking their old times over, the old men sat 
apart ; 

While, up and down the unhusked pile, or nest- 
ling in its shade. 

At hide-and-seek, with laugh and shout, the 
happy children played. 



THE CORN-SONG. 
Heap high the farmer's wintry hoard ! 

Heap high the golden corn ! 
No richer gift has Autumn poured 
From out her lavish horn ! 

Lst other lands, exulting, glean 

The apple from the pine, 
The orange from its glossy green, 

The cluster from the vine; 

We better love the hardy gift 

Our rugged vales bestow, 
To cheer us when the storm shall drift 

Our harvest-fields with snow. 

Through sales of grass and meads of flowers, 
Our ploughs their furrows made, 

While on the hills the sun and showers 
Of changeful April played. 

We dropped the seed o'er hill ana plain, 

Beneath the sun of May, 
And frightened from our sprouting grain 

The robber crows away. 

All through the long, bright days of June 

Its leaves grew green and fair, 
And waved in hot midsummer's noon 

Its soft and yellow hair. 

And now, with autumn's moonlit eves, 

Its harvest-time has eome, 
We pluck away the frosted leaves, 

And bear the treasure home. 

There, richer than the fabled gift 
Apollo showered of old, 

Fair hands the broken grain shall sift, 
And knead its meal of gold. 

Let vapid idlers loll in silk 

\ round I heir co .1 l\ board ; 
( j-ive us the bowl of samp and milk, 
By homespun beauty pound ! 

Where'er the wide old kitchen hearth 

Sends up its smoky curls. 
Who will not thank the kindly earth, 

And bless our farmer girlsj ! 

Then shame on all the proud and vain, 

Whose folly laughs to scorn 
The blessing of our hardy grain, 

Our wealth of golden corn ! 

Let earth withhold her goodly root, 

Let mildew blight, the eye, 
Give to the worm the orchard's fruit, 

The wheat-field to the fly: 

But let the g 1 old erop adorn 

The hills our fathers trod ; 
Still let us, for his golden corn, 

Send up our thanks to God ! 



92 



THE LUMBERMEN. 






" Make we here our cam]) of winter." 



THE LUMBERMEN. 

Wii.ni.v round our woodland quarters, 
Sad-voiced Autumn grieves; 

Thickly down thi'sc swelling waters 

Flout his fallen lea\ es. 
Through the tall and naked timber, 

Column-like and old, 
Gleam the sunsets of November, 

From their skies of gold. 

O'er us, to the southland heading, 

Screams the gray wild-goose ; 
On the night-fmst sounds the treading 

Of the brindled moose. 
Noiseless creeping, while we 're sleeping, 

Frost his task-work plies ; 
Soon, his icy bridges heaping, 

Shall our log-piles rise. 

When, with sounds of smothered thunder, 

On sonic night of rain, 
Lake and river break asunder 

Winter's weakened chain, 
Down the wild March flood shall bear them 

To the saw-mill's wheel, 
Or where Steam, the slave, shall tear them 

With his teeth of sticl. 

Be it starlight, lie it moonlight, 

In these vales below, 
When the earliest beams of sunlight 

Streak the mountain's snow, 
Crisps tin- hoar-frost, keen and early, 

To our hurrying feet, 
And the forest echoes clearly 

All our blows repeat. 

Where the crystal Ambijejis 
Stretches broad and clear, 
And Millnoket's pine-black ridges 
Hide the browsing deer : 

through lakes and wide morasses, 
Or through rocky walls, 

ml si roti". I 'enobscol passes 
White with foamy falls ; 

Where, through clouds, are glimpses given 

< )i Kafahdin's sides. 
Rock and fori St piled to hea\ in. 

Torn and ploughed by slides ! 
Par below, the Indian trapping, 

I n I In- sunshine wa riu ; 
Far above, the snow cloud wrapping 

Hall the peak in storm ! . 



Where are mossy carpets better 

Than the Persian weaves, 
And than Eastern perfumes sweeter 

Seem the fading leaves ; 
And a music wild and solemn, 

Prom the pine-tree's height, 
Rolls its vast and sea-like volume 

On the wind of night ; 

Make we here our camp of winter ; 

And, through sleet and snow, 
Pitchy knot and beechen splinter 

On our hearth shall glow. 
Here, with mirth to lighten duty, 

We shall lack alone 
Woman's smile and girlhood's beauty, 

Childhood's lisping tone. 

But their hearth is brighter burning 

r^or our toil to-day ; 
And the welcome of returning 

Shall our loss repay, 
When, like seamen from the waters, 

From the woods we come, 
Greeting sisters, wives, and daughters, 

Angels of our home ! 

Not for us the measured ringing 

From the village spire. 
Not for us the Sabbath singing 

Of the sweet-voiced choir : 
Ours thi.' old, majestic temple, 

Where God's brightness shines 
Down the dome so grand and ample, 

Propped by loft)- pines ! 

Through each branch-enwoven skylight, 
Speaks He in the breeze, 

ild beneath flu.' twilight 

Of lost Eden's tr< es ! 
For his ear, the inward feeling 

Needs no outward tongue ; 
lie can see thi' spirit kneeling 

While the axe is swung. 

Heeding truth alone, and turning 

From the false and dim, 
Lamp of toil or altar burning 

\ i e alike to I lim. 
Strike, then, comrades !— Trade is waiting 

( )n our rugged loil ; 
Far ships waiting for the freighting 
( )f our woodland spoil ! 

Ships, whose traffic links Ihcse highlands, 
Bleak and cold, of ours, 



THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA. 



93 



With the citron-planted islands 

Of a clime of flowers ; 
To our t'n>sts the tribute bringing 

Of eternal heats ; 
In our lap of winter flinging 

Tropic fruits and sweets. 



Cheerly, on the axe of labor, 

Let i In' sunbeams dance, 
Better than the flash of sabre 

< )r the gleam of Lance ! 
Strike ! — With every blow is given 

Freer sun and sky, 
And the long-hid earth to heaven 

Looks, with wondering eye ! 



Loud behind us grow the murmurs 

Of the age to come ; 
Clang "I smiths, and tread of farmers, 

Bearing harvest home! 
Here her virgin lap with treasures 

Shall the green earth fill ; 
Waxing wheat and gulden maize-ears 

Crown each beechen hill. 



Keep who will the city's alleys, 

Take the smooth-shorn plain, — 
( rive to us the cedar valleys, 

Rocks and hills of Maine! 
In our North-land, wild and woody, 

Let us still have part : 
Rugged nurse and mother sturdy, 

Hold us to thy heart ! 

O, our free hearts beat the warmer 

For thy breath of snow ; 
And our tread is all the firmer 

For thy rocks below. 
Freedom, hand in hand with labor, 

Walketh strong and brave ; 
On the forehead of his neighbor 

No man writeth Slave ! 

Lo, the day breaks ! old Katahdin's 

Pine-trees show its fires. 
While from these dim forest gardens 

Rise their blackened spires. 
Up, my comrades ! up and doing ! 

Manhood's rugged play 
Still renewing, bravely hewing 

Through the world our way ! 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA. 

Speak and tell us, our Ximena, looking north- 
ward far away. 

O'er the camp of the invaders, o'ei the Mexican 
array, 

Who is losing ? who is winning ? are they far or 
come they near ? 

Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the 
storm we hear. 

" Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of 

battle rolls ; 
Blood is flowing, men are dying ; God have mercy 

on their souls ! " 
Who is losing V who is winning ? — " Over hill and 

over plain, 
1 see 'nit smoke of cannon clouding through the 

mountain rain.'' 

Holy Mother ! keep our brothers ! Look, Ximena, 
look once more. 

"Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly 
as before, 

Bearing on, in strange confusion, friend and foe- 
man, foot and in use. 

Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping 
down its mountain course." 

Look forth once more, Ximena ! " Ah ! the 

smoke has rolled away ; 
And I see the North ra rifles gleaming down the 

ranks of gray. 
Hark ! that sudden blast of bugles ! there the 

troop of Minon wheels ; 
There the Northern horses thunder, with the can- 
• non at their heels. 

" Jesu, pity ! how it thickens ! now retreat and 

now advance ! 
Right against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's 

charging lance ! 



Down they go, the brave young riders ; horse and 

foot together fall ; 
Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through them 

ploughs the Northern ball." 



Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling fast 
and frightful on ! 

Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has lost, 
and who has won V 

"Alas! alas! I know not; friend and foe to- 
gether fall, 

O'er the dying rush the living : pray, my sisters, 
for them all ! 



" Lo ! the wind the smoke is lifting: Blessed 

Mother, save my brain ! 
I can see the wounded crawling slowly out from 

heaps of slain. 
Now they stagger, blind and bleeding ; now they 

fall, and strive to rise ; 
Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest they 

die before our eyes ! 



"0 my heart's love! O my dear one! lay thj 

poor head on my knee : 
Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee '? Canst 

thou hear me ? canst thou see V 
O Ay husband, brave and gentle ! O my Bernal, 

look once more 
On the blessed cross before thee ! Mercy ! mercy ! 

all is o'er ! " 



Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena ; lay thy dear 

one down to rest ; 
Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the cross 

u] ion his breast ; 
Let his dirge lie sung hereafter, and his funeral 

masses said : 
To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the living ask 

thy aid. 



94 



THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA.— FORGIVENESS. 




" But she hoard the youth's low moaning, and his struggling breath of pain, 
And slu- raised the cooling water to his parching lips again. - ' 



Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young, 
a soldier lay, 

Torn with shot and pierced with lances, bleeding 
slow his life away ; 

But, as tenderly before him the lorn Ximena 
knelt, 

She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol- 
belt. 

With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned 

away her head ; 
With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back 

upon her dead ; 
But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his 

struggling breath of pain, 
And she raised the cooling water to his parching 

lips again. 

Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her 

hand and faintly smiled : 
Was that pitying face his mother's ? did she 

watch beside her child ? 
All his stranger words with meaning her woman's 

heart supplied ; 
With her kiss upon his forehead, "Mother ! "■ 

murmured he, and died ! 



" A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led 

thee forth, 
Prom some gentle, sad-eyed mother, weeping, 

lonely, in the North ! " 
Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid 

him with her dead, 
And turned to soothe the living, and bind the 

wounds which bled. 

Look forth once more, Ximena ! " Like a cloud 

before the wind 
Rolls the battle down the mountains, leaving 

blood and death behind ; 



Ah ! they plead in vain for mercy ; in the dust 

the wounded strive ; 
Hide your faces, holy angels ! O thou Christ of 

God, forgive ! " 

Sink, O Night, among thy mountains ! let the 
cool, gray shadows fall ; 

Dying brothers, lighting demons, drop thy cur- 
tain over all ! 

Through the thickening winter twilight, wide 
apart the battle rolled, 

In its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's 
lips grew cold. 

But the noble Mexic women still their holy task 

pursued, 
Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn 

and faint and lacking food. 
Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender 

care they hung, 
And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange 

ami Northern tongue. 

Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world of 

ours ; 
Upward, through its blood and ashes, spring 

afresh the Eden flowers; 
From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity 

send their prayer, 
And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in 

our air ! 



FORGIVENESS. 

My heart was heavy, for its trust had been 
Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong ; 

So, turning gloomih from my fellow-men, 
One summer Sabbath day I strolled among 

The green mounds ..i' the village burial place; 
Where, pondering how all human love and hate 
Find one sad level ; and how, soon or late, 



BARCLAY OF URY. 95 


Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened 


Smiting through their midst we'll teach 


face, 


Civil look and decent spei eh 


And cold hands folded over a still heart, 


To these boyish prancers ! " 


Pass the green threshold of our common grave, 




Whither all footsteps tend, whence none de- 


" Marvel not, mine ancient friend, 


part, 


Like beginning, like the end " : 


Awed for myself, and pitying my i 


Quoth the Laird of Ury, 


< lur common sorrow, like a mighty wave, 


" Is the sinful servant more 


Swept all my pride away, and trembling I for- 


Than his gracious Lord wdio bore 


gave '. 


Bonds and stripes in Jewry? 




"Give me joy that in his name 


BARCLAY OF URY. '-' 


I can bear, with patient frame, 




All these vain ones oil"! ; 


Up the street- of Aberdeen, 


While for them He suffereth long, 


By the kirk and college green, 


Shall 1 answer wrong with wrong, 


1 oide the Laird of 1 ' ry ; 


Scoffing with the scoffer ? 


Close behind him, rinse beside, 




Foal of mouth and evil-eyed, 


" Happier I, with loss oi ill 


Pressed the mob in fury. 


Hunted, outlawed, held in thrall, 




With few friends to greet me, 


Flouted him the drunken churl, 


Than when reeve and squire were seen, 


Jeered at him the serving-girl, 


Riding out from Aberdeen, 


Prompt to please her mast r; 


With bared heads to meet me. 


And the begging carlin, lat • 




Fed and clothed at Ury's gat?, 


" When each goodwife, o'er and o'er, 


Cursed him as he passed her. 


Blessed me as 1 passed her door ; 




And the snooded daughter, 


Yet, with calm and stately mien, 


Through her casement glancing down, 


Up the streets of Aberde n 


Smiled on him who bore renown 


( lame he slowly riding : 


From red fields of slaughter. 


And, to all he saw and heard, 




Answering not with bitter word, 


"Hard to feel the stranger's scoff, 


Turning not for chiding. 


Hard the old friend's falling oil', 




Hard to learn forgiving : 


Came a troop with broadswords swinging, 


But the Lord his own rewards, 


Bits and bridles sharply ringing, 


And his love with theirs accords, 


Loose and free and froward; 


Warm and fresh and living. 


Quoth the foremost, " Ride him down ! 




Push him ! prick him! through the town 


" Through this dark and stormy night 


Drive the Quaker coward ! " 


Faith beholds a feeble light 




Up the blackness streaking ; 


But from out the thickening crowd 


nowing God's own time is best, 


Cried a sudden voice and loud : 


In a patient hope 1 rest 


"Barclay ! Ho ! a Barclay ! " 


For the full day-breaking ! " 


And the old man at his side 




Saw a comrade, battle tried, 


So the Laird of Ury said, 


Scarred and sunburned darkly ; 


Turning slow his horse's head 




Towards the Tolbooth prison, 


Who with ready weapon bare, 


Where, through iron gates, he heard 


Fronting to the troopers there, 


Poor disciples of the Word 


( 'ried aloud : '* (iod save us, 


Preach of Christ arisen ! 


Call ye coward him who stood 




Ankle deep in Lutzen's blood, 


Not in vain, Confessor old, 


With the brave Gustavus '? " 


Unto us the tale is told ' 




Of thy day of trial ; 


"Nay, I do not need thy sword, 


Every age on him, who strays 


Comrade mine,'' said Ury's lord; 


From its broad and beaten ways, 


" Put it up, I pray thee : 


Pours its sevenfold vial. 


Passive to his holy will, 




Trust I in my Master still, 


Happy he whose inward ear 


Even though he slay me. 


Angel comfortings can hear, 




O'er the rabble's laughter ; 


"Pledges of thy love and faith, 


And while Hatred's fagots burn, 


Proved on many a field of death, 


Glimpses through the smoke discern 


Not by me are needed.'' 


Of the good hereafter. 


Marvelled much that henchman bold, 




That his laird, so stout of old. 


Knowing this, that never yet 


Now so meekly pleaded. 


Share of Truth was vainly set 




In the world's wide fallow ; 


" Woe's the day ! " he sadly said, 


After hands shall sow the seed, 


With a slowly shaking head, 


After hands from hill and mead 


And a look of pity ; 


Reap the harvests yellow. 


" Ury's honest lord reviled. 




Mock of knave and sport of child, 


Thus, with somewhat of the Seer, 


In his own good city! 


Must the moral pioneer 




From the Future borrow ; 


" Speak the word, and, master mine, 


Clothe the waste with dreams of grain, 


As we charged on Tilly's line, 


And, on midnight's sky of rain, 


And his Walloon lancers, 


Paint the golden morrow ! 



96 



WHAT THE VOICE SAID.— TO DELAWARE.— WORSHIP. 



WHAT THE VOICE SAID. 

Maddened l>.\ Earth's wrong and evil, 

" Lord ! " [cried in sudden ire, 
"Prom ili\ righl hand, clothed with thunder, 

Shak ! fire ! 

■■ Love is Lost, and Faith is dying ; 

With the brute the nun is sold ; 
And the dropping Mn.nl of labor 

Hardens into gold. 

•■ ii, re tin- dying wail of Famine, 
Tli. re the battle's groan of pain ; 

And, in silence, smooth faced Mammon 
Reaping men like grain: 

" • Where is < rod, that we should Tear Him? ' 
Thus the earth-born Titans say ; 

■ ( }od ! il thou art living, hear us ! ' 
Thus the weak ones praj ." 

"Thou, the patieni Heaven upbraiding," 

Spake a solemn Voice within ; 
" Weary of our Lord's forbearance, 

Art thou I ii'i' from sin ? 

" Fearless brow to Him uplifting, 
Canst thou for his thunders call, 

Knowing that to guilt's attraction 
Evermore they fall ? 

" Know'st thou not all germs of evil 

In thy heart await their time ? 
Nol thyself, but God's restraining, 
.Stays their growth of crime. 

"Couhlst thou boast, child of weakness! 

O'er the sons of wrong and strife, 
Were their strong temptations planted 

In thy path of life ? 

" Thou hast seen two streamlets gushing 
From one fountain, clear and free, 

But by widely varying channels 
Searching for the sea. 

"Glideth one through greenest valleys, 
Kissing them with lips still sweet; 

One, mad roaring down the mountains, 
Stagnates at their feet. 

"Is it choice whereby the Pars... 
Kneels before Ids mother's fire ? 
In his black tent did the Tartar 

Choose his wandering sire ? 

"He alone, whose hand is bounding 

Human power and human will, 
Looking through each soul's surrounding, 

Knows its good or ill. 

"For thyself, while wrong and sorrow 
Make to thee their strong appeal, 

Coward wert thou not to utter 
What the heart must- feel. 

"Earnest words must- needs be spoken 
When the warm heart bleeds or burns 

With its scorn of wrong, or pity 
For the wronged, by turns. 

"But, l..\ all th\ nature's weakness, 
Hidden faults and follies known, 

I te I lion, in rebuking evil, 
Conscious of thine own. 

" Not the l.ss shall stern eyed Duty 
To thy lips her trumpet set, 



But with harsher blasts shall mingle 
Waitings of regret." 

('ease not. Voice of hol\ speaking, 

Teacher senl of I rod, be near, 
Whispering through the day's cool silence, 

Let my spirit hear ! 

So, when thoughts of evil doers 
Waken scorn, or hatred move, 

Shall a mournful fellow-feeling 
Temper all with love. 



TO DELAWAIii:. 

[Written during thi discussion ir. th: 1... a lature ■■( 
that State, in the winter oi 1846-47, of a hill for the 
abolition ..i slavery . | 

Thrice welcome to thy sisters of the East, 

To the strong tillers of a rugged home. 
With spray-wet locks to Northern winds released, 

And hardy feet o'erswept by ocean's foam ; 
And to the young nymphs of the golden West, 

Whose harvest mantles, fringed with prairie 
bloom, 
Trail in the sunset,— O redeemed and blest, 

To the warm welcome of thy sisters come ! 
Broad Pennsylvania, down her sail-white bay 

Shall give thee joy, and Jersey from her plains, 
And the great lakes, where echo, free ahvay, 

Moaned never shoreward with the clank of 
chains, 
Shall weave new sun-bows in their tossing spray, 
And all their waves keep grateful holiday. 
And, smiling on thee through her mountain rams, 

Vermont shall bless thee; and the Granite 
peaks, 
And vast Katahdin o'er his woods, shall wear 
Their snow-crowns brighter in the cold keen air ; 

And Massachusetts, with her rugged cheeks 
O'errun with grateful tears, shall turn to thee, 

When, at thy bidding, the electric wire 

Shall tremble northward with its words of fire; 
Glory and praise to God ! another State is free ! 



WORSHIP. 

.!,.• religion, and undefiled, before God and the 
Father is this: To visit the widows and the fatherless in 

their affliction, and to keep himself uiisi>..tie.i fr ttie 

world." Jam< s i. ".;. 

The Pagan's myths through marble lips are 
spoken, 

And ghosts of old Beliefs still flit and moan 
Hound fane and altar overthrown and brokl n. 

O'er tree-grown barrow and gray ring of stone. 

Blind Faith had martyrs in those old high places, 
The Syrian hill grove and the Druid's wood. 

With mother's offering, to the Fiend's embraces, 
Bone of their bone, and blood of their own 

blood. 

Red altars, kindling through that night, of error, 
Smoked with warm blood beneath the cruel eye 

Of lawless Power and sanguinary Terror, 
Throned on the circle of a pitiless sky ; 

Beneath whose baleful shadow, overcasting 
All heaven above, and blighting earth below, 



THE DEMON OF THE STUDY. 



97 



The scourge grew red, the lip grew pale with 
fasting, 
And man's oblation was his fear and woe ! 

Then through great temples swelled the dismal 
moaning 
Of dirge-like music aiid sepulchral prayer ; 
Pale wizard priests, o'< ; - occult symbols droning, 

Swung their win i in the burdened air : 

As if the pomp of ritual-;, and the savor • 
Of gums and spices could the Unseen One 
please ; 

As if his ear could bend, with childish favor, 
To the poor flattery of the organ keys ! 

Feet red from war-fields trod the church aisles 
holy, 
With trembling reverence : and the oppressor 
there, 
Kneeling before his priest, abased and lowly, 
Crushed human hearts beneath his knee of 
prayer. 

Not such the service the benignant Father 
Requireth at his earthly children's hands : 

Not the poor offering of vain rites, but rather 
The simple duty man from man demands. 

For Earth he asks it : the full joy of Heaven 
Knoweth no change of waning or increase; 

The great heart of the Infinite beats even, 
Untroubled flows the river of his peace. 

He asks no taper lights, on hi h surrounding 
The priestly altar and the saintly grave, 

No doloroas chant nor organ music sounding, 
Nor incense clouding up the twilight nave. 

For he whom Jesus loved hath truly spoken : 
The holier worship which he deigns to bless 

Restores the lost, and binds the spirit broken, 
And feeds the widow and the fatherless ! 

Types of our human weakness and our sorrow ! 

Who lives unhaunted by his loved ones dead? 
Who, with vain longing, seeketh not to borrow 

From stranger eyes the home lights which have 
fled ? 

O brother man ! fold to thy heart thy brother ; 

Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there ; 
To worship rightly is to love each other, 

Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer. 

Follow with reverent steps the great example 
Of Him whose holy work was " doing good " ; 

So shall the wide earth seem our Father's temple, 
Each loving life a psalm of gratitude. 

Then shall all shackles fall ; the stormy clangor 
Of wild war music o'er the earth shall cease; 

Love shall tread out the baleful fire of anger, 
And in its ashes plant the tree of peace ! 



THE DEMON OF THE STUDY. 

The Brownie sits in the Scotchman's room, 
And eats his meat and drinks his ale, 

And beats the maid with her unused broom, 
And the lazy lout with his idle flail, 

But he sweeps the floor and threshes the corn, 

And hies him away ere the break of dawn. 

The shade of Denmark fled from the sun, 
And the Cocklane ghost from the barn-loft 
cheer, 

The tiend of Faust was a faithful one, 
Agrippa's demon wrought in fear, 

7 



And the devil of Martin Luther sat 
By the stout monk's side in social chat. 

The Old Man of the Sea, on the neck of him 

Who seven times crossed the deep, 
Twined closely each lean and withered limb, 

Like the nightmare in one's sleep. 
But he drank of the wine, and Sindbad east 
I The evil weight from his back at last. 

But the demon that cometh day by day 
To my quiet room and fireside nook, 

Where the casement light falls dim and gray 
On faded painting and ancient book, 

[s a sorrier one than any whose names 
Are chronicled well by good King James. 

No bearer of burdens like Caliban, 
No runner of errands like Ariel. 

He coin,:-s in the sha] t a fat old man. 

Without rap of knuckle or pull of hell ; 
And whence he comes, or whither he goes, 
; I know as I do of the wind which blows. 

i A stout old man with a greasy 'rat 

Slouched heavily down to his dark, red nose, 

I And two gray eyes enveloped in fat, 

Looking through glasses with iron bows. 

I Read ye, and heed ye, and ye who can, 

j Guard well your doors from that old man ! 

J He comes with a careless " How d' ye do ? " 
And seats himself in my elbow-chair ; 

i And my morning paper and pamphlet new 
Fall forthwith under his special care, 
And he wipes his glasses and clears his throat, 

i And, button by button, unfolds his coat. 

And then he reads from paper and book, 
In a low and husky asthmatic tone, 
| With the stolid sameness of posture and look 

Of one who reads to himself alone ; 
i And hour after hour on my senses come 
! That husky wheeze and that dolorous hum. 

The price of stocks, the auction sales. 
The poet's song and the lover's glee, 

The horrible murders, the seaboard gales, 
The marriage list, and the jeu cVesprit, 

All reach my ear in the self-same tone, — 

I shudder at each, but the fiend reads on ! 

O, sweet as the lapse of water at noon 
O'er the mossy roots of some forest tree, 

The sigh of the wind in the woods of June, 
Or sound of flutes o'er a moonlight sea, 

Or the low soft music, perchance, which seems 

To float through the slumbering singer's dreams, 

So sweet, so dear is the silvery tone. 

Of her in whose features I sometimes look, 

As 1 sit at eve by her side alone, 
And we read by turns from the self-sam 
book, — 

Some tale perhaps of the olden time, 

Some lover's romance or quaint old rhyme. 

Then when' the story is one of woe, — 
Some prisoner's plaint through his dungeon- 
bar. 

Her blue eye glistens with tears, and low 
Her voice sinks down like a moan afar ; 

And I seem to hear that prisoner's wail, 

And his face looks on me worn and pale. 

And when she reads some merrier song, 
Her voice is glad as an April bird's, 

And when the tale i& of war and wrong, 
A trumpet's summons is in her words, 



08 



THE PUMPKIN. -EXTRACT FROM "A NEW ENGLAND LEGEND. 



A,,. I the rush of bhe hosts I seem to hear, 
And see th( plume and Bpear ! — 

O, pity me then, when, day bj day, 
The stout fiend darkens my parlor door ; 

And reads me peroham ■ laj 

\\ (rich mi Ited i fore, 

Prom lips ■ i I' 1 , 'as Bwe l, 

Ami moved liki I w in ro ephj is meet ! 

i cross nn Boor wi1 h a nei vous tread, 
1 whistle and laug \ and Bhout, 

I flouri -h m> cane above hi hi ad, 
\n,| stir up t he fire to roasl him out ; 

1 topple the chairs, and drum on the pane, 

And press my hands on mj ears, in vain ! 

I've studied Glanvillo and James the w ise, 
And wizard black Letter tomes which treat 

Of demons of e> erj name and size, 
Which a Christian man is presumed to meet, 

But oever a hint and ne\ er a line 

Can I find of a n ! like mine. 

I've crossed the Psalter with Bradj and Tate, 
And laid the Primei aboi e i hem .-ill, 

I 've nailed a horseshoe over I he grate, 
And hung a wig to my pai lor wall 

Once wort bj a learned .1 udge, they say, 

At. Salem court in the w itchcrai I daj ! 

" ( 'onjuro /< , acclt ratissime, 

Ablre ad lunm locum ' "■ still 
Like a visible nightmare he sits liy me,— 

The exoi cism has lust its skill ; 
And I hear again in mj haunted room 
The husky « heeze and t he dolorous hum ! 

Ah! commend me to Mary Magdalen 
With her sevenfold plagues, to the wander- 
ing Jew, 

To the terrors which haunted Oresteswhen 
Tin- furies his midnight curtains drew, 

Bui charm him off, ye w ho charm him can, 

That reading demon, I hat Eat old man ! 



Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from Bast and 

from West, 

From Ninth and from South come the pilgrim 

and guest, 
Winn the gray bailed New Englander sees round 

his board 
The old broken links of affection restored, 
When the care-wearied man seeks Ids mothei 

once more, 

And the worn matron smiles where the eirl smiled 

Before, 
What moistens t!ic lip and what, brightens the 

eye? 
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin 

pie '.' 

< », fruit loved of boyhood ! — the old days recall- 
ing, 

When wood grapes were purpling and In-own nuts 
were falling ! 

Whi n wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin, 

Gli g out through the dark with a candle with- 
in! 

When wo laughed round the corn heap, with 

hearts all in tune, 
Our chair a, liroad pumpkin, our lantern the 
moon, 

Telling tales of the fairj who travelled like 

steam, 

lua pumpkin shell coach, with two rats for her 

team ! 

Then thanks for thy present ! — none sweeter or 
better 

E'er smoked from an oven or circled :i platter ! 

Fairer hands ne\ er wrought at a pastry more fine, 
Brighter eves never watched o'er its baking, than 

thine! 
And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to 

express, 
Swells mj heart- that thy shadow may never lie 

less. 

That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below, 
And the lame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine 
grow, 

And thy life be as sweet, and its last, sunset, sky 

Golden tinted and fair as tin own Pumpkin pie ! 



THE PUMPKIN. 

O, oimtm.y and fair in the lauds of the sun, 
The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run, 
Ami the rock and the tree and the cotta 

fold, 
With liroad leaves all greenness and blossoms all 

gold, 
lake that which o'er Nineveh's prophel once 

While he waited to know thai his warning was 

true, 

And longed for the storm cloud, and listened in 

vain 
For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire lain. 

On the hanks of the Xenil the dark Spanish 

maiden 
Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine 

laden . 

And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold 
Through orange leaves Bhining the broad spheres 
of gold ; 

Yet with dl W from his home in the 

No- 
il, Ms of his harvest the Yankee looks 

Where crook necks are coiling and yellow fruit 

shines, 
And the sun id' September melts down on his 

\ UlcS. 



EXTRACT FROM "A NEW KNOLAND 
LEGEND." 

HOW has New England's romance fled, 

\<]\ en as a, vision of the morning ! 
Its rites foredone, its guardians dead, — 
Its priestesses, bereft of dread, 

Waking the veriest, urchin's scorning ! 

< tone like the Indian wizard's yell 

And fire-dance round the magic rock, 
Forgol ten like I he Druid's spell 

At moonrisi bj his holy oak ! 
No more along the shadow} glen, 

< Hide the dim ghosts of murdered men ; 
No more t he unquiei churchyard dead 
Glimpse upward from t heir turfy bed, 

Startling the traveller, late and lone ; 
As, on some nii'ht of starless weather, 
The\ silently commune together, 

Each siti in", on fclil OV n head stone ! 

'The rootless house, decaj ed, deserted, 
Its living tenanl a all depai ted, 
No longer rings with midnight revel 
<>i witch, or ghost, or goblin evil ; 

No pale blue flame sends out its tla-hes 
Through ere\ iced roof and shattered sashes ! — 

The witch grass round the ha/el spring 

May sharply to the night air sinj;-, 



HAMPTON BEACH. 



no 



But there no more shall withered hags 

Refresh .-if ease their bro si ick aa 

Or taste bhose hazel shadowed waters 

As beverage inert for Satan's daughters; 

No nun i' their mimic tones be beard, — 

The mew of cat, — the chirp of bird, — 

Shrill blending wit b i be boai 

< >f the fell demon following a Eter ! 

The cautious goodman nails no more 

A horseshoe on his outer door. 

Lest some unseemly hag should fit 

To his own mouth her bridle-bit, — 

The goodwife's churn no more refuses 

Its wonted culinary uses 

Until, with hinted needle burned, 

The witch has to her place returned ! 

Our witches are no Longer old 

A in 1 wrinkled beldames. Satan sold, 

But young and gaj and lai ghing creal ures, 

With t lie heart's sunshine on their features, — 

Their Borcery- -the light \. hich dan 

Where the raised lid unveils its glances ; 

Or that low breathed and gentle bone, 

The music of Love's twilight hours, 
Soft, dream like, a moan 

Above her nightly closing flowers, 
Sweeter than that which sighed of yore 
Along the charmed Ausonian shore ! 
Even she, our own \\ end bei i 
Sub Pythoness of ancient Lynn, 

Sl( eps calmly where the li\ in- laid her ; 
Ami ( he wide <• dm of Si a • 
Lefi ! n its lal st mist ress free, 

Hath Hound no grai and skilled invader: 
So perished Albion's "glammarye," 

With him in .Melrose Abbey sleeping, 
His charmed borch beside bis knee, 
That even the dead himself mighl 

The magic scroll within his keeping. 
And now our modern Yankee sees 
Nor omens, spells, nor mysteries; 
And naught above, below, around, 
Of life or death, ol sight or sound, 

Whate'er its nature, form, or look, 

Excites his terror or surprise, — 

All seeming bo his knowing eyes 
Familiar as his " catechize/' 

Or " Webster's Spelling-Hook.'' 



HAMPTON BEACH. 

The sunlight glitters keen and bright, 

Where, ml 
Lies stretching to my dazzled sight 
A luminous belt, a misty li 
Beyond the dark pine bluffs and wastes of sandy 
gray. 

The tremulous shadow of the Sea ! 

Against its ground 
Of silvery light, rock, hill, and tree, 
Still as a picture, char and free, 
With varying outline mark the coast for miles 
around. 

On — on — we tread with loose-flung rein 

Our seaward way. 
Through dark green fi< Id md blossoming grain, 
Where the wild brier-rose skirts the lane, 
And bends above our heads the flowering locust 
spra 

Ha ! like a kind hand on my brow 
Comes this fresh breeze. 



Cooling its dull and feverish glow, 

While through m\ being seems to How 
The breath of anew life,— the healing oi r ■ 

Now rest we, when: this grassy mound 

His feet hath set 
In the great waters, which have hound 
His granite ankles greenly round 
With long and tangled moss, and weeds with cool 
■\ wet. 

Good by to pain and care! I take 

Mine ease bo da 
Here where these sunny waters break, 
And ripples this keen breeze, 1 shake 
All burdens from the heart, all weary thoughts 

1 draw a freer breath — I seem 

Like all 1 see — 
Waves in the sun -the whil learn 

Of sea birds III the slanting beam — 

And far-off sails which (lit before the south-wind 
free. 

So when Time's veil shall fall asunder, 
The smd may know 

No fearful change, nor sudden wonder, 
Nor sink l\\<- weight of mystery under, 
But with the upward rise, and with the vastness 
grow. 

And all we shrink from now may seem 

No new revealing ; 
Familiar as our childhood's stream, 
( )r pleasant memory of a dream 
The loved and cherished Past upon the new life 
scaling. 

Serene and mild bhe untried light 

May have it s dawning ; 
And, as in summer's northern night 
The evening and the da.v Q U] 
The sunset hues of Time blend with the soul's 
new morning. 

I sit alone ; in foam and spray 

Wave after wave 
Breaks on the rocks which, stern and gray, 

Shoulder the broken bide away, 
Or murmurs hoarse and strong through mo6sy 
• deft and cave. 

What heed I of the dusty land 
And noi-\ town ? 

I see t he mighty deep expand 

from its white line of glimmering sand 
To where the blue of heaven on bluer waves shuts 
down ! 

In listless quietude of mind, 

1 yield to all 
The change of cloud and wave and wind 
And passive on 1 1 lined, 

I wander with the waves, and with them rise and 
fall. 

But look, thou dreamer ! — wave and shore 

In shadow lie ; 
The night-wind warns me back once more 
To where, my native hill tops o'er, 
Bends like an arch of lire the glowing sunset sky. 

So then, beach, bluff, and wave, farewell ! 

I 1 1 , r with me 

No bO 'ell, 

But long and oft -hall .Memory tell 

Of this brief thoughtful hour of musing by the 
Sea. 



100 



LINES.— THE REWARD. 



LINKS, 

WRITTEN OS BEARING OP THE DEATH OF SILAS 
WRIGHT OF NEW VtillK. 

As the] who, tossing midst the storm at night, 
While turning shoreward, where a beacon 

shone, 

M.i t th e walled blackness of the heaven alone, 
So, on the turbulent waves of parti tossed, 
In gloom and tempest, nun have seen thy light 

Quenched in the darkness. At thy hour of 

noon, 

While life was pleasant to thy undimmed sight, 
And, day by day, within thy spirit, grew 
A holier hope than young Ambition knew, 
As through thy rural quiet, not in vain, 
Pierced the sharp thrill of Freedom's cry of pain, 

Man of the millions, thou art lost too soon ! 
Portents at which the bravest stand aghast, — 
The birth-throes of a Future, strange and vast, 

Alarm the land ; yel thou, SO wise and strong, 
Suddenly summoned to the burial bed, 

Lapped in its slumbers deep and ever long, 
Hear'st not the tumult surging overhead. 
Who now shall rally Freedom's scattering host ? 
Who wear the mantle of the leader lost? 
Who stay the march of slavery ? He whose 
voice 
Hath called thee from thy task-field shall not 

lack 
Yet bolder champions, to beat, bravely back 
The wrong which, through his poor ones, reaches 

Him: 
Yet firmer hands shall Freedom's torchlights 
trim, 
And wave them high across the abysmal black, 
Till bound, dumb millions there shall see them 
and rejoice. 
KV// mo., 1847. 



LINES, 

ACCOMPANYING MANUSCRIPTS PRESENTED TO 
FRIEND. 

' T is said that in the Holy Land 
The angels of the place have blessed 

The pilgrim's bed of desert sand, 
Like Jacob's stone of r< st. 

That down the hush of Syrian skies 

Some sweet-voiced saint at twilight sings 

The song whose holy symphonies 
Are beat by unseen wings ; 

Till starting from his sandy bed, 
The wayworn wanderer looks to see 

The halo of an angel's head 
Shine through the tamarisk-tree. 

So through the shadows of my way 

Thy smile hath fallen soft and clear, 
So at the weary close of day 
Hath seemed thy voice of cheer. 

That pilgrim pressing to his goal 
May pause not for the vision's sake, 

Yet all fair things within his soul 
The thought of it shall wake : 

The graceful palm tree by the well, 

Seen on the far horizon's rim ; 
'IV, dark eyes of the fleet gazelle, 

Bent timidly on him ; 



Each pictured saint, whose golden hair 
St i ins Mud ike through the convent's glooom: 

Pale shrines of martyrs young and fair, 
And loving Mary's t b ; 

And thus each tint or shade which falls, 
from sunset cloud or waving tree 

Along my pilgrim path, recalls 
The pleasant thought of thee. 

Of one in sun and shade l he same, 

In weal and woe my steady friend, 
Whatever by that holy name 
The angels comprehend. 

Not blind to faults and follies, thou 
Hast never failed the good to see, 

Nor judged by one unseemly bough 
The upward-struggling tree. 

These light leaves at thy feel I lay,— 

Poor common thoughts on common things, 

Which time is shaking, day by day, 
Like leathers from his wings, — • 

Chance shootings from a frail life-tree, 
To nurturing care but Little known, 

Their good was partly learned oi thee, 
Their folly is my own. 

That tree still clasps the kindly mould, 
Its leaves still drink the twilight dew, 

And weaving its pale green with gold. 
Still shines the sunlight through. 

There still the morning zephyrs play, 

And there at times the spring bird sings, 
And mossy trunk and fading spray 
. Are flowered with glossy wings. 

Yet, even in genial sun and rain, 
Root, branch, and leaflet fail and fade ; 

The wanderer on its lonely plain 
Erelong shall miss its shade. 

O friend beloved, whose curious skill 
Keeps bright the last year's leaves and 
flowers, 

With warm, glad summer thoughts to fill 
The cold, dark, winter hours ! 

Pressed on thy heart, the leaves I bring 

May well defy the wintry cold, 
Until, in Heaven's eternal spring, 

Life's fairer ones unfold. 



THE REWARD. 



Who, 



looking backward from his manhood's 
prime, 
Sees not the spectre of his misspent time? 

And, through the shade 
Of funeral cypress planted thick behind. 
Hears no reproachful whisper on the wind 
Prom his loved dead ? 

Who bears no trace of passion's evil force ? 
Who shuns thy sting, () terrible Remorse? — 

Who does not cast 
On the thronged pages of his memory's book, 

At times, a sad and half-reluctant, look, 
Regretful of the past ? 

Alas I the evil which we fain would shun 
We do, and leave the wished-for good undone : 
Our strength to-day 



RAPHAEL.— LUCY HOOPER. 



101 



Is but to-morrow's weakness, prone to fall ; 
Poor, blind, unprofitable servants all 
Are we alway. 

Y< t who, thus looking backward o'er his years, 
Pei Is not his eyelids wet with grateful tears, 

If he hath been 
Permitted, weak and sinful as he was, 
To cheer and aid, in some ennobling cause, 

His fellow-men V 

If he hath hidden the outcast, or let in 
.V ray of sunshine to the cell of sin, — 

If he hath lent 
Strength to the weak, and, in an hour of need, 
Over tin- suffering, mindless of his creed 

Or home, hath bent, 

He has not lived in vain, and while he gives 
The praise to Him, in whom he moves and lives 

With thankful heart ; 
He gazes backward, and with hope before, 
Knowing thai from his works he nevermore 

Can henceforth part. 



RAPHAEL. 

I shall not soon forget that sight: 
The glow of autumn's westering day, 

A hazy warmth, a dreamj light, 
On Raphael's picture lay. 

It was a simple print I saw, 
The fair face of a musing boy ; 

Yet, while I gazed, a sense of awe 
Seemed blending with my joy r . 

A simple print : — the graceful flow 
I > boyhood's soft and wavy hair, 

And fresh young lip and cheek, and brow 
Unmarked and. clear, were there. 

Yet through its sweet and calm repose 

I saw the inward spirit shine ; 
It was as if before me ros.- 

The white veil of a shrine. 

As if, as Gothland's sage has told, 
The hidden life, the man within, 

Dissevered from its frame and mould. 
By mortal eye were seen. 

Was it the lifting of that eye, 
The waving of that pictured hand ? 

-iid wreath on the skj , 
I saw the walls expand. 

The narrow room had vanished, — space, 
Broad, luminous, remained alone, 

Through which all hues and shapes of grace 
And beauty Looked or shone. 

Around the mi§hty master came 

The marvels which his pencil wrought, 

Those miracles of power whose fame 
Is wide as human thought. 

Then' drooped thy more than mortal face, 
O Mother, beautiful and mild ! 

Iding in one dear embrace 
Thy Saviour and thy Child! 

The rapt brow of the Desert John; 

The awful glory of that day 
When all the Father's brightness shone 

Through manhood's veil of clay. 



And, midst gray prophet forms, and wild 
Dark visions of the daj s of old. 

How sweetly woman's beauty smiled 
Through locks of brown and gold ! 

There Fomarina's fair young lace 
Once more upon her lover shone, 
Whose model of an angel's grace 

He borrow i , own. 

Slow passed that vision from my view, 
But not the lesson which it taught; 

The soft, calm shadov s which it threw 
Still rested on my thought : 

The truth, that painter, bard, and sage, 
Eveti in Earth's cold and changeful clime, 

Plant for their deathless heritage 
The fruits and flowers of time. 

We shape ourselves the joy or fear 
Of which the coming lite is made, 

And till our Future's atmosphere 
With sunshine- or With shade. 

The tissue of the Life to be 

We weave with colors all our own, 

And in the field of Destiny 
We reap as we have sown. 

Still shall the soul around it call 

The shadows which it gathered here, 

And, painted on the eternal wall, 
The Past shall reappear. 

Think ye the notes of holy song 
On Milton's tuneful ear have died ? 

Think ye that Raphael's angel throng 
lias vanished from his side ? 

O no ! — We live our life again ; 

Or warmly touched, or coldly dim, 
The pictures of the Past remain, — 

Man's works shall follow him ! 



LUCY HOOPER. 43 

Tiiey tell me, Lucy, thon art dead, — 

That ail of thee we loved and cherished 
Has with thy summer roses perished ; 

And left, as its young beauty fled. 

An ashen memory in its stead, — 
The twilight of a parted day 

Whose fading light is cold and vain 
The heart's faint echo of a strain 

Of low, sweet music passed away. 
That true and loving heart, — that gift 

Of a mind, earnest, clear, profound, 
Bestowing, with a glad unthrift, 

Its sunny light on all around, 
Affinities which only could 
Cleave to the pure, the true, and good ; 

And sympathies which found no rest, 

Save with the loveliest and best. 
Of them — of thee — remains there naught 

But sorrow in the mourner's breast '! — 
A shadow in the land of thought? 
No ! — Even my weak and trembling faith 

Can lift for thee the veil which doubt 

And human fear have drawn about 
The all-awaiting scene of death. 

Even as thou wast I see thee still ; 
And, save the absence of all ill 
And pain and weariness, which here 
Summoned the sigh or wrung the tear, 



103 



CHANNING. 



The same as when, two summers back, 

our childhood's Merrimack, 
1 saw thy dark eye wander o'er 
Stream, sunny upland, rocky shore, 
And heard i hj Low, soft \ oice alone 
Midst lapse of waters, and the tone 
( M' pine lea b-wind blown, 

There 's not a charm oi nuiI or brow, — 

Of all we knew and loved in thee, — 
But lives in holier beauty now, 

Baptized in imm 
Not mine the sad and freezing dream 

Of souls that, with their earthly mould, 

Cast i'H' the Loves and joj s of old, — 
Unbodied, — Like a pale moonbeam, 

A^ pure, as pas ionless, and cold ; 
Nor mine the hope of India's son, 

Of slumbering in oblivion's rest, 
Life's myriads blending into one, — 

In blank annihilation blest ; 
I >ns! atoms of the infinite, — 
Sparks scattere 1 from the central light, 
And winning back through mortal pain 
Their old unconsciousness again. 
No ! — I have fIuends in Spirit Land, — 
Not shadows in a shadowy band, 

Not others, but themselves arc they. 
And till I think of them the same 
As when the Master's summons came; 
Their change, — the holy morn-light breaking 
Upon the dream worn sleeper, waking, — 

A change from twilight into day. 

Tiny 've laid thee midst the household graves, 

Where father, brother, sister lie ; 
Below thee sweep the dark bine waves, 

Above thee bends the summer sky. 
Thy own loved church in sadness read 
Her solemn ritual o'er thy head, 
And blessed and hallowed with her prayer 
The turf laid lightly o'er thee there. 
That church, whose rites and liturgy, 
Sublim ■ and old, were truth to thee, 
Undoubted to thy bosom taken, 
As symbols of a faith unshaken. 
Even I, of simpler views, could feel 
The beauty of thy trust and zeal ; 
And, owning not thy creed, could see 
How dec}) a truth it seemed to th 
And how thy fervent heart had thrown 
O'er all, a coloring of its own, 
Ami kindled up, intense ami warm, 
A life in every rite and form, 
As, when on Chebar's banks of old, 
The Hebrew's gorgeous vision rolled, 
A spirit tilled ti i one, — 

A life " within the wheels " was seen. 

Farewell ! A little time, and we 

W'lio knew thee well, and loved thee here, 
One after one shall follow thee 

As pilgrims through the gate of fear, 
Which opens on eternity. 
let shall we cherish not the less 

All that is left our hearts meanwhile; 
..The memory id' thy Loveliness 
1 Shall round our weary pathway smile, 

Like m dightwhen the sun has set, — 

A sweet and tender radiance yet. 
Thoughts of thy clear eyed sense of duty, 

Th> generous scorn of all things wrong, — 
Th.- unth, the strength, the graceful beauty 

Which Mended in thy song. 
All lovely things, by thee I.. loved, 

Shall whisper to our hearts of l! 
These green hills, where thy childhood roved, — 

You river winding to the sea, — 
The sunset light of autumn cms 

Reflecting on the deep, still Hoods, 



('loud, crimson sky, and trembling leaves 

( >f rainbow tinted woods, — 
These, in our view, shall henceforth take 
A tenderer meaning for thy sake ; 
And all thou Lovedst of earth and sky, 
Seem sacred to thy memory. 



CHANNING." 

Not vainly did old poets tell, 

Nor vainly did old genius paint 
God's great and crowning miracle, — 

The hero and the saint ! 

For even in a faithless day 

Can we our sainted ones discern; 

And feel, while with them on the way, 
Our hearts within us burn. 

And thus the common tongue and pen 

Which, world-wide, echo Oiianmnlj'.S fame, 

As one of Heaven's anointed men, 
Have sanctified his name. 

In vain shall Home her portals bar, 

And shut from him her saintly prize, 
Whom, in the world's great calendar, 

All men shall canonize. 

By Narragansett's sunny bay, 

Beneath his green embowering wood, 

To me it seems but yesterday 
Since at his side I stood. 

The slopes lay green with summer rains, 
The western wind blew fresh and free., 

And glimmered down the orchard lanes 
The white suit' of the sea. 

With us was one, who, calm and true, 
Life's highest purpose understood. 

And, like his blessed Master, knew 
The joy of doing good. 

Unlearned, unknown to lettered fame, 
Yet on the lips of England's poor 

And toiling millions dwelt his name. 
With blessings evermore. 

Unknown to power or place, yet where 

The sun looks o'er the Carib sea, 
It blended with the freeman's prayer 

And song of jubilee. 

He told of England's sin and wrong, — 
The ills her suffering children know, — 

The squalor of the city's throng, — 
The green field's want and woe. 

O'er Channing's face the tenderness 

Of sympathetic sorrow stole, 
Like a still shadow, passionless, — 

The sorrow of the soul 

But when the generous Briton told 

How hearts were answering to his own, 

And Freedom's rising murmur rolled 
Up to the dull-eared throne, 

I saw, methought, a glad surprise 

Thrill through that fiail and pain-worn 
frame, 
And, kindling in those deep, calm eyes, 

A still and earnest flame. 

His leu, brief words were such as move 
The human heart, — the Faith-sown seeds 



TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES B. STORRS. 



103 



Which ripen in the soil of love 
To high heroic de< ds. 

No bars of sect or clinic were felt, — 
Tlie Babel strife of tongues had eeased,- 

And at one common altar knelt 
The Quaker and the priest. 

And Dot in vain : with strength renewed, 
And zeal refreshed, and hope less dim, 

For that brief meeting, each pursued 
The path allotted him. 

How echoes yet each Western hill 
And vale with Channing's dying word ! 

How are the hearts of freemen ^t ill 
By that great warning stirred ! 

The stranger treads his native toil, 
Anil pleads, with zeal unfelt before 

The honest right of British toil, 
The claim of England's poor. 

Before him time-wrought barriers fall, 
Old fears subside, old hatreds melt, 

And, stretching o'er the sea's blue wall, 
The Saxon greets the Celt. 

The yeoman on the Scottish lines, 
The Sheffield grinder, worn and grim, 

The delver in the Cornwall mines, 
Look up with hope to him. 

Swart smiters of the glowing steel, 
Dark feeders ot the forge's Same, 

Pale watchers at the loom and wheel, 
Repeat his honored name. 

And thus the influence of that hour 
Of converse on Rhode Island's strand, 

Lives in the calm, resistless power 
Which moves our father-land. 

God blesses still the generous thought, 
And still the fitting word He speeds, 

And Truth, at his requiring taught, 
He cpuckens into deeds. 

Where is the victory of the grave ? 

What dust upon the spirit lies y 
God keeps the sacred life he gave, — 

The prophet never dies ! 



TO THE MEMORY OP 

CHARLES B. ST )RRS, 

LATE PRESIDENT OF WESTERN RESERVE 
COLLEGE. 

TnOD hast fallen in thine armor, 

Thou martyr of the Lord ! 
With thy last breath crying, — " Onward ! 

And thy hand upon the sword. 
The haughty heart derideth, 

And the sinful lip reviles, 
But the blessing of the perishing 

Around thy pillow smiles ! 

When to our cup of trembling 

The added drop is given, 
And the long-suspended thunder 

Falls terribly from Heaven, — 



When a new and fearful freedom 
Is proffered of the Lord 

To the slow-consuming Famine, — 
The Pestilence and Sword ! — 

When the refuges of Falsehood 

Shall lie swept away ii: wrath, 
And the temple shall lie shaken, 

With its idol, to the earth, — 
Shall not thy words of warning 

Be all remembered then V 
And thy now unheeded message 

Burn in the hearts of men ? 

Oppression's hand may scatter 

Its nettles on thy tomb, 
And even Christian bosoms 

Deny thy memory room ; 
For lying Lips shall torture 

Thy mercy into crime. 
And tiie slanderer shall flourish 

As the bay-tree for a time. 

But where the south-wind lingers 

On Carolina's pines, 
Or falls the careless sunbeam 

Down Georgia's golden mines, — 
Where now beneath his burthen 

The toiling slave is driven, — 
Where now a tyrant's mockery 

Is offered unto Heaven, — 

Where Mammon hath its altars 

Wet o'er with human blood, 
And pride and lust deba 

The workmanship of God, — 
There shall thy praise be spoken, 

Redeemed from Falsehood's ban, 
When the fetters shall be broken, 

And the slave shall be a man ! 

Joy to thy spirit, brother ! 

A thousand hearts are warm, — 
A thousand kindred liosoins 

Are baring to the storm. 
What though red-handed Violence 

With secret Fraud combine ? 
The wall of fire is round us, — 

Our Present Help was thine. 

Lo, — the waking up of nations, 

From Slavery's fatal sleep, — 
The murmur of a Universe, — 

Deep calling unto Deep ! 
Joy to thy spirit, brother ! 

On every wind of heaven 
The onward cheer and summons 

Of Freedom's voile is given! 

Glory to God forever ! 

Beyond the despot's will 
The soul of Freedom liveth 

Imperishable still. 
The words which thou hast uttered 

Are of that soul a part, 
And the good seed thou hast scattered 

Is springing from the heart. 

In the evil days before us, 

And the trials yet to come, — 
In the shadow of the prison, 

Or the cruel martyrdom, — 
We will think of thee, O brother ! 

And thy sainted name shall be 
In the blessing of the captive, 

And the anthem of the free. 
bSJ4. 



104 



LINES.— A LAMENT.— DANIEL WHEELER. 



LINES, 
on THE DE \TH OF >. O. TORBBY. 

Gone before us, ourbrothi r, 

To tli<' spirit land ! 
Vainly look we for anol her 

In thy place to stand. 
Who shall offer youth and beauty 

On the wasting shrine 
Of a stern and lofty duty, 

With a faith like thine ? 

O, thy gentle smile of greeting 

W'hii again shall see ? 
Who amidst the solemn meeting 

( laze again on thee'- 1 — 
Who, when peril gathers o'er us, 

Wear so calm a brow ? 
Who, with evil men before us, 

So serene as thou ? 

Early hath the spoiler found tkee, 

I bother of our love ! 
Autumn's faded earth around thee, 

And its storms above ! 
Evermore that turf lie lightly, 

And, with future showers, 
O'er thy slumbers fresh and brightly 

Blow the summer flowers ! 

In the locks thy forehead gracing, 

Not a silvery streak ; 
Nor a line of sorrow's tracing 

On thy fair young cheek ; 
Eyes of light and lips of roses, 

Such as Hylas wore, — 
Over all that curtain closes, 

Which shall rise no more ! 

Will the vigil Love is keeping 

Round that grave of thine, 
Mournfully, like Jazer weeping 

Over Sibmah's vine, 1 -'' — 
W'ill the pleasant memories, swelling 

Gentle hearts, of thee. 
In the spirit's distant dwelling 

All unheeded be ? 

If the spirit ever gazes, 

From its journeyings, back; 
If the immortal ever traces 

( >'er its mortal track ; 
Wilt thou not, O brother, meet us 

Sometimes on our way, 
And, in hours of sadness, greet us 

As a spirit may ''. 

Peace be with thee, O our brother, 

In the spirit-land ! 
Vainly look we for another 

In thy place to stand. 
Unto Truth and Freedom giving 

All thy early powi rs, 
Be thy virtues with the living, 

And thy spirit ours ! 



A LAMENT. 

'• The parted spirit, 
Knoweth it not our Borrow .- Inswereth not 
■ ing io our tears?" 

Tin: circle is broken, — one seat i- forsaken, — 
One bud from the tree of our friendship is 
shaken, — 

i I i -in among US no 1 ,e ' shall thrill 

With joy in our gladness, or grief in our ill. 



Weep ! lonely and lowly are slumbering now 
The lighl of her glances, t he pride of her brow, 
Weep I Badlj and long shall we listen in vain 
To hear the soft tones of her welcome again. 



For humanity's 



Give our tears to the dead! 

claim 

Prom its silence aiuj darkness is ever the same ; 
The hope of that World whose existence is bliss 
Maj not stifle the tears of the mourners of this. 

For, oh ! if one glance the freed spirit can throw 

On the scene of its troubled probation below. 
Than the pride of the marble, the pomp of the 

dead, 

To that glance will be dearer the tears which we 

shed. 

O, who can forget the mild light of her smile, 
Over lips moved with music and feeling the 

while — 
The eye's dee]) enchantment, dark, dream-like, 

and clear, 
In the glow of its gladness, the shade of its tear. 

And the charm of her features, while over the 

whole 
Played the hues of the heart and the sunshine of 

soul, — 
And the tones of her voice, like the music which 

seems 
Murmured low in our ears by the Angel of 

dreams ! 

But holier and dearer our memories hold 

Those treasures of feeling, more precious than 

gold,— 
The love and the kindness and pity which gave 
Fresh flowers for the bridal, green wreaths for the 

grave ! 

The heart ever open to Charity's claim, 
Unmoved from its purpose by censure and blame, 
While vainly alike on her eye and her ear 
Fell the scorn of the heartless, the jesting and 

jeer. 

How true to our hearts was that beautiful sleeper ! 
With smiles for the joyful, with tears for the 

weeper ! — 
Yet, evermore prompt, whether mournful or gay, 
Willi warnings in love to the passing astray. 

For, though spotless herself, she could sorrow ft r 

them 
Who sullied with evil the spirit's pure gem ; 
And a sigh or a tear could the erring reprove", 
And the sting of reproof was still tempered by 

love. 

As a cloud of the sunset, slow melting in heaven, 
As a star that is lost when the daylight is given. 
As a glad dream of .slumber, which wakens in 

bliss, 
She hath passed to the world of the holy from 

this. 



DANIEL WHEELER. 

[Daniel Wheeler, a minister of the Society of 

Friends, and w ho hail labored in the cause of his Divine 

i, and 1 1n- i: I rads of the 

i':i. in,', died in New York in the spring "i 1840, while on 

ious \ isit to (his country. | 

() in \ki.v loved ! 
And worthy of our love ? — No more 
Thy aged form shall rise before 



DANIEL NEALL. 



105 



The hushed and waiting worshipper, 
In meek obedience utterance giving 
To words of truth, so fresh and living, 
That, even to the inward sense, 
They bore unquestioned evidence 
( M an anointed Messeng< 
Or, bowing down thy silver hair 
In reverent awfulness of prayer, — 

The world, its time and sense, shut out, — 
The brightness of Faith's holy trance 
Gathered upon thy countenari 

As if each lingering cloud of doubt, — 
The cold, dark shadows resting here 
In Time's unluminous atmosphere, — 

Were lifted by an angel's hand. 
And through them on thy spiritual eye 
Shown down the blessedness on high, 

The glory of the Better Lam I ! 

The oak has fallen ! 
While, meet for no good work, the vine 
May yet its worthless brandies twine. 
Who knoweth not that with thee fell 
A great man in our Israel ? 
Fallen, while thy loins were girded still, 

Thy feet with Zion's dews still wet, 

And in thy hand retaining yet 
The pilgrim's staff and scallop-shell ! 
Unharmed and safe, where, wild and free, 

Across the Neva's cold nioniss 
The breezes from the Frozen Sea 

With winter's arrowy keenness pass ; 
Or where the unwarning tropic gale 
Smote to the waves thy tattered sail, 
Or where the aoon-hour's fervid heat 
Against Tahiti's mountains beat ; 

The same mysterious Hand which gave 

Deliverance upon land and wave. 
Tempered for thee the blasts which blew 

Ladaga's frozen surface o'er, 
And blessed for thee the baleful dew 

Of evening upon Eimeo's shore, 
Beneath this sunny heaven of ours, 
Midst or* soft airs and opening flowers 

Hath given thee a grave ! 

His will be done, 
Who seeth not as man, whose way 

Is not as ours ! — 'T is well with thee ! 
Nor anxious doubt nor dark dismay 
Disquieted thy closing day. 
But, evermore, thy soul could say, 

1 My Father careth still for me ! " 
Called from thy hearth and home, — from her, — 

The last bud on thy household tree, 
The last dear one to minister 

In duty and in love to thee. 
From all which nature holdeth dear, 

Feeble with years and worn with pain, 

To seek our distant land again. 
Bound in the spirit, yet unknowing 

The things which should befall thee here, 

Whether for labor or for death, 
In (did Hike trust serenely going 

To that last trial of thy faith ! 

O, far away, 
Where never shines our Northern star 

On that dark waste which Balboa saw 
From Darien's mountains stretching far, 
So strange, heaven-broad, and lone, that there, 
With forehead to its damp wind bare, 

He bent his mailed knee in awe ; 
In many an isle whose coral feet 
The surges ol that ocean beat, 
In thy palm shadows, Oahu, 
And Honolulu's silver bay, 
Amidst Owyhee's hills of blue, 

And t iro-plains of Tooboonai, 
Are gentle hearts, which long shall be 



Sad as our own at thought of thee, — 

Worn sowers of Truth's holy seed, 

Whose souls in weariness and need 
Were strengthened and refreshed by thine. 

For blessed by our Father's hand 
W as 1 liy deep love and tender care. 
Thy ministry and fervent prayer, — 

Grateful as Eshcol's clustered vine 

To Israel in a weary laud I 

And they who drew 
By thousands round t lire, in the hour 

Of prayerful waiting, hushed and deep, 

That he who bade the islands keep 
Silence before him, might renew 

Their strength with his unslumbering power, 
They too shall mourn that thou art gone, 

That nevermore thy aged lip 
Shall soothe the weak, the erring warn, 
Of those' who first, rejoicing, heard 
Through thee the Gospel's glorious word, — 

Seals of thy true apostleship. 
And, if the brightest diadem, 

Whose gems of glory purely burn 

Around the ransomed ones in bliss, 
Be evermore reserved for them 

Who here,' through toil and sorrow, turn 

Many to righteousness, — 
May we not think of thee as wearing 
That star-like crown of light, and bearing, 
Amidst Heaven's white and blissful band, 
The fadeless palm-branch in thy hand ; 
And joining with a seraph's tongue 
In that new song the elders sung, 
Ascribing to its blessed Giver 
Thanksgiving, love, and praise forever ! 

Farewell ! 
And though the ways of Zion mourn 
When her strong ones are called away, 
Who like thyself "have calmly borne 
The heat and burden of the day, 
Yet He who slumbereth not nor sleepeth 
His ancient watch around us keepeth ; 
Still, sent from his creating hand, 
New witnesses for Truth shall stand, — 
New instruments to sound abroad 
The Gospel of a risen Lord ; 

To gather to the fold once more 
The desolate and gone astray, 
The scattered of a cloudy day, 

And Zion's broken walls restore ; 
And, through the travail and the toil 

Of true obedience, minister 
Beauty for ashes, and the oil 

Of joy for mourning, unto her ! 
So shall her holy bounds increase 
With walls of praise and gates of peace : 
So shall the Vine, which martyr tears 
And blood sustained in other years, 

With fresher life be clothed upon ; 
And to the world in beauty show 
Like the rose-plant of Jericho, 

And glorious as Lebanon ! 



DANIEL NEALL. 



Friend of the Slave, and yet the friend of all ; 
Lover of peace, yet ever foremost when 
The need of battling Freedom called for men 
To plant the banner on the outer wall ; 
Gentle and kindly, ever at distress 
Melted to more than woman's tenderness, 
Yet firm and steadfast, at his duty's post 



106 



TO MY FRIEND ON THE DEATH OF HIS SISTER.— GONE. 



Fronting the violence of a maddened host, 
Like some gray rock from which the waves are 
bossed ! 



Her funeral anthem is a glad evangel, — 
The "Mod die not ! 



Knowing his deed- of love, men questioned not God calls our loved ones, but we lose not wholly 
The faith of one whose walk and word were What He hath given ; 



right,— 

Who tranquilly in Life's great task- field wrought, 
And, side by side with evil, scarcely caught 

A stain upon his pilgrim garb id' white: 
Prompt to redress another's wrong, his own 
Leaving to Time and Truth and Penitence alone. 



Such was our friend. Formed on the good old 

plan, 
A true and brave and downright honest man! — 
lie blew no trumpet in the market i 
Nor in the church with hypocritic face 
Supplied with cant the lack of Christian grace ; 
Loathing pretence, he did with cheerful will 
What others talked of while their hands were 

still ; 
And, while "Lord, Lord!" the pious tyrants 

cried, 
Who, in the poor, their Master crucified, 
His daily prayer, far better understood 
In acts than words, was simply DOING GOOD. 
So calm, so constant was his rectitude, 
That by his h> ; .s alone we know its worth, 
And feel how true a man has walked with us on 

earth. 



6th Mh month, 1840. 



TO MY FRIEND ON THE DEATH OF HIS 

SISTER. 111 

TniNE is a grief, the depth of which another 

May never know ; 
Yet, o'er the waters, O my stricken brother ! 

To thee I go. 

I lean my heart unto thee, sadly folding ■ 

Thy hand in mine ; 
With even the weakness of my soul upholding 

The strength of thine. 

I never knew, like thee, the dear departed ; 

I stood not by 
When, in calm trust, the pure and tranquil- 
hearted 

Lay down to die. 

And on thy ears my words of weak condoling 

Must vainly fall : 
The funeral hell which in thy heart is tolling, 

Sounds over all ! 

I will not mock thee with the poor world's 
common 

And heartless phrase, 
Nor wrong the memory of a sainted woman 

With idle praise. 

With silence only as their benediction, 

God's angels come 
Where, in the shadow of a great affliction, 

The soul sits dumb ! 

Yet, would I say what thy own heart approveth : 

Our Father's will, ' 
Calling to Him the dear one whom He loveth, 

Is mercy still . 

Not upon thee or thine the solemn angel 
Hath evil wrought ; 



They live on earth, in thought and deed, as 
truly 
As in his heaven. 

And she is with thee ; in thy path of trial 

She walketb yet ; 
Still with the baptism of thy self-denial 

Her locks arc wet. 

Up, then, my brother ! Lo, the fields of harvest 

Lie white in view ! 
She lives and loves thee, and the God thouservest 

To both is true. 

Thrust in thy sickle ! — England's toilworn peas- 
ants 

Thy call abide ; 
And she thou mourn'st, a pure and holy presence, 

Shall glean beside ! 



GONE. 



Another hand is beckoning us, 

Another call is given ; 
And glows once more with Angel-steps 
. The path which reaches Heaven. 

Our young and gentle friend, whose smile 

Made brighter .summer hours, 
Amid the frosts of autumn time 

Has left us with the flowers. 

No paling of the cluck of bloom 

Forewarned us of decay ; 
No shadow from the Silent Land. 

Fell round our sister's way. 

The light of her young life went down, 

As sinks behind the hill 
The glory of a setting star, — 

Clear, suddenly, and still. 

As pure and sweet, her fair brow seemed 

Eternal as the sky ; 
And like the brook's low song, her voice, — 

A sound which could not die. 

And half we deemed she needed not 

The changing of her sphere, 
To give to Heaven a Shining One, 

Who walked an Angel here. 

The blessing of her quiet life 

fell on us like the dew ; 
And good thoughts, where her footsteps pressed, 

Like fairy blossoms grew. 

Sweet promptings unto kindest deeds 

Were in her very look ; 
We read her face, as one who reads 

A true and holy book : 

The measure of a blessed hymn, 
To which our hearts could move ; 

The breathing of an inward psalm; 
A canticle of love. 

We miss her in the place of prayer, 
And by the hearth-fire's light; 

We pause beside her door to hear 

Once more her sweet "Good-night ! " 



THE LAKE-SIDE. —THE HILLTOP. 



ior 



There seems a shadow on the day, 
Her smile no longer cheet a : 

A dimness on the stars of night, 
Like eyes that look through tears. 

Alone unto our Father's will 
One thought hath reconciled ; 

That He whose love exceedeth ours 
Hath taken home his child. 

Fold her, O Father ! in thine arms, 

And let her henceforth be 
A messenger of love between 

Our human hearts ami thee. 

Still let her mild rebuking stand 

Between us anil the wrong, 
And her dear memory serve to make 

Our faith in Goodness strong. 

And grant that she who, trembling, here 

Distrusted all her powers, 
May welcome to her holier home 

The well-beloved of ours. 



THE LAKE-SIDE. 

TriE shadows round the inland sea 

Are deepening into night ; 
Slow up the slopes of Ossipee 

They chase the lessening light. 
Tired of the long day's blinding heat, 

I rest my languid eye, 
Lake of the Hills ! where, cool and sweet, 

Thy sunset waters lie ! 

Along the sky, in wavy lines, 

O'er isle and reach and bay, 
Green-belted with eternal pines, 

The mountains stretch away. 
Below, the maple masses sleep 

Where shore with water blends, ' 
While midway on the tranquil deep 

The evening light desceuds. 

So seemed it when yon hill's red crown, 

Of old, the Indian trod, 
And, through the sunset air, Linked down 

Upon the Smile of God. 47 
To him of light and shade the laws 

No forest sceptic taught ; 
Their living and eternal Cause 

His truer instinct sought. 

He saw these mountains in the light 

Which now across them shines ; 
This lake, in summer sunset bright, 

Wallel round with sombering [lines. 
God near him seemed ; from earth and skies 

His loving voice he heard, 
As, face to face, in Paradise, 

Man stood before the Lord. 

Thanks, O our Father ! that, like him, 

Thy tender love I see, 
In radiant hill and woodland dim, 

And tinted sunset sea. 
For not in mockery dost thou fill 

Our earth with light and grace ; 
Thou hid'st no dark and cruel will 

Behind thy smiling face ! 



THE HILL-TOP. 

The burly driver at my side, 
We slowly climbed the hill, 

Whose summit, in the hot noontide, 
Seemed rising, rising still. 



At last, our short noon shadows hid 

The top-stone, bare and brown, 
From whence, like Gizeh's pyramid, 

The rough mass slanted down. 

I felt tlie cool breath of the North ; 

Between me and the sun, 
O'er deep, still lake, and ridgy earth, 

1 saw the cloud-shades run. 

me, stretched for glistening miles, 

Lay mountain-girdled Squam ; 
Like green-winged birds, the leafy isles 

Upon its bosom swam. 

And. glimmering through the sun-haze warm. 

Far as the eye could roam, 
Dark billow.-, of an earthquake storm 

Beflecked with clouds like foam, 
Their vales in misty shadow deep, 

Their rugged peaks hi shine, 
I saw the mountain ranges sweep 

The horizon's northern line. 

There towered Chocorua's peak ; and west, 

Moosehillock's woods were seen, 
With many a nameless slide-scarred crest 

And pine-dark gorge between. 
Beyond them, like a sun-rimmed cloud, 

The great Notch mountains shone, 
Watched over by the solemn-browed 

And awful face of stone ! 

"A good look-off! " the driver spake : 

" About this time, last year, 
I drove a party to the Lake, 

And stopped, at evening, here. 
'T was duskish down below ; but all 

These hills stood in the sun. 
Till, dipped behind yon purple wall, 

He left them, one by one. 

" A lady, who, from Thornton hill, 

Had held her place outside, 
And, as a pleasant, woman will, 

Had cheered the long, dull ride, 
Besought me, with so sweet a smile, 

That — though I hate delays — 
I could not choose but rest awhile, — 

(These women have such ways \) 

"On yonder mossy ledge she sat, 

Her sketch upon her knees, 
A stray brown lock beneath her hat 

Unrolling in the breeze ; 
Her sweet face, in the sunset light 

Upraised and glorified, — » 

I never saw a prettier sight 
In all my mountain ride. 

II As good as fair ; it seemed her joy 
To comfort and to give ; 

My poor, sick wife, and cripple boy, 

Will bless her while they live ! " 
The tremor in the driver's tone 

His manhood did not shame : 
"I dare say, sir, you may have known — " 

He named a well-known name. 

Then sank the pyramidal mounds, 

The blue lake fled away ; 
For mountain-scope a parlor's bounds, 

A lighted hearth for day ! 
From lonely years and weary miles 

The shadows fell apart ; 
Kind voices cheered, sweet human smiles 

Shone warm into my heart. 

We journeyed on ; but earth and sky 

Had power to charm no more ; 
Still dreamed my inward-turning eye 
The dream of memory o'er. 



108 



ON RECEIVING AX EAGLE'S QUILL FROM LAKE SUPERIOR. 



Ah! human kindness, human love, 

To few who seek denied, — 

Too late we learn to prize above 

The whole round world beside ! 



ON RECEIVING AN EAGLE'S QUILL 
PROM LAKE SUPERIOR. 

All day the darkness and the cold 

I 'pun my heart have lain, 
Like shadows mi the winter sky, 
Like frost upon the pane; 

But now my torpid fancy wakes, 

And, (in thy Eagle's plume, 
Hides forth, like Sindbad on his bird, 

Or witch upon her broom ! 

Below me roar the rocking pines, 

Before me spreads the lake 
Whose long and solenm-soimding waves 

Against the sunset break. 

I hear the wild Rice-Eater thresh 

The grain he has not sown ; 
I see, with flashing scythe of fire, 

The prairie harvest mown ! 

1 hear the far-off voyager's horn ; 

I see the Yankee's trail, — 
His foot on every mountain-pass, 

On every stream his sail. 

By forest, lake, and waterfall, 

I see his pedler show ; 
The mighty mingling with the mean, 

The lofty with the low. 

He's whittling by St. Mary's Falls, 

Upon his loaded wain ; 
He 's measuring o'er the Pictured Rocks, 

With eager eyes of gain. 

I hear the mattock in the mine, 

The axe-stroke in the dell, 
The clamor from the Indian lodge, 

The Jesuit chapel bell ! 

I see the swarthy trappers come 

From Mississippi's springs; 
And war-chiefs with their painted brows, 

And crests of eagle wings. 

Behind the scared squaw's birch canoe, 

The steamer smokes and raves ; 
And city lots are staked for sale 

Above old Indian graves. 

I hear the tread of pioneers 

Of nations yet to be ; 
The first low wash of waves, where soon 

Shall roll a human sea. 

The rudiments of empire here 

Are plasl ic J et and warm : 
The chaos of a mighty world 

Is rounding into form ! 

Each rude and jostling fragment soon 

Its fitting place shall find, — 
The raw material of a State, 

Its muscle and its mind ! 



And, westering still, the star which leads 

The N<\\ \\ orld in its train 
Has tipped with tire the icy spears 

Of many a mountain chain. 

The snowy cones of Oregon 

Are kindling on its way ; 
And California's golden sands 

Gleam brighter in its ray ! 

Then blessings on thy eagle quill, 

As, wandering far and wide, 
I thank tiee Eor this twilight dream 

And Fancy's airy ride ! 

Yet. weh omer than regal plumes, 

Which Western trappers find, 
Thy free and pleasant thoughts, chance sown, 

Like feathers on the wind. 

Thy symbol be the mountain-bird, 

Whose glistening quill 1 hold ; 
Thy home the ample air of hope, 

And memorj 's sunset gold ! 

In thee, let joy with duty join, 

And st length unite with love, 
The eagle's pinions folding round 

The warm heart of the dove ! 

So, when in darkness sleeps the vale 
Where still the blind bird clings, 

The sunshine of the upper sky 
Shall glitter on thy wings ! 



MEMORIES. 

A beautiful and happy girl, 

With step as light as summer air. 
Eyes glad with smiles, and brow of pearl, 
Shadowed by many a careless curl 

Of unconfined and flowing hair ; 
A seeming child in everything, 

Save thoughtful brow and ripening charms. 
As Nature wears the smile of Spring 

When sinking into Summer's arms. 

• A mind rejoicing in the light 

Which melted through its graceful bower, 
Leaf after leaf, dew -moist and bright, 
And stainless in its holy white, 

Unfolding like a morning flower : 
A heart, which, like a fine-toned lute, 

With every breath of feeling woke, 
And, even when the tongue was mute, 

From eye and lip in music spoke. 

How thrills once more the lengthening chain 

Of memory, at the thought of thee ! 
Old hopes which long in dust have lain ■ 
Old dreams, come thronging back again, 

And boyhood lives again in me ; 
I feel its glow upon my cheek, 

Its fulness of the heart is mine, 
As when I leaned to hear thee speak, 

Or raised my doubtful eye to thine. 

I hear again thy low replies, 

I feel thy arm within my own, 
And feimidh again uprise 

ngea lids of hazel eyes, 

With soft brown tresses overblown. 
Ah ! memories of sweet summer eves, 

Of moonlit wave and willowy way, 
Of stars and flowers, and dewy leaves, 

And smiles and tones more dear than they ! 



THE LEGEND OF ST. MARK. 



100 



Ere this, thy quiet eye hath smiled 

My picture of thy youth to see, 
When, half a woman, half a child, 
Thy very artlessness beguiled, 

Ami folly's self seemed wise in thee; 
I too can smile, when o'er that hour 

The lights of memory backward stream, 
Yet feel the while thjit manhood's power 

Is vainer than my boyhood's dream. 

Ti lis have parsed on, and left their trace, 

i >i -raver care and deeper thought ; 
Anil until me the calm, cold face 
Of manhood, and to thee the grace 

Of woman's pensive beauty brought. 
.Mori- wide, perchance, for blame than praise, 

The school-boy's humble name has flown ; 
Thine, in the given and quiet ways 

Of unobtrusive goodness known. 

And wider yet in thought and deed 

Diverge our pathways, one in youth ; 
Thine the Genevan's sternest creed, 
While answers to my spirit's nee I 

The Derby dalesman's simple truth. 
For thee, the priestly rite and prayer, 

And holy day. ami solemn psalm; 
Poi me, tlii' silent reverence where 

My brethren gather, slow and calm. 

Yet hath thy spirit left on me 

An impress Time has worn not out, 
And something of myself in thee, 
A shadow from the past. I see, 

Lingering, even yet, thy way about ; 
Not wholly can the heart unlearn 

That lesson of its better hours, 
Not yet lias Time's dull footstep worn 

To common dust that path of flowers. 

Thus, while at times before our eyes 

The shadows melt, and fall apart, 
And, smiling through them, round us lies 
Tin- warm Light of our morning skies, — 

The Indian Summer of the heart ! — 
i sj mpathies of mind, 

In founts of feeling which retain 
Their pure, fresh flow, we yet may find 

Our early dreams not wholly vain ! 



THE LEGEND OF ST. MARK. 48 

TriE day is closing dark and cold, 

With roaring blast and sh-ety showers; 

And through the dusk the lilacs wear 
The bloom of snow, instead of flowers. 

I turn me from the gloom without, 

To ponder o'er a tale of old, 
A legend of the age of Faith, 

By dreaming monk or abbess told. 

On Tintoretto's canvas lives 
That fancy of a loving heart, 

In graceful lines and shapes of power, 
And hues immortal as his art. 

In Provence (so the story runs) 

There lived a lord, to whom, as slave, 

A peasant-boy of tender years 
The chance of trade or conquest gave. 

Forth-looking from the castle tower, 
Beyond the hills with almonds dark, 



The straining eye could scarce discern 
The chapel of the good St. Mark. 

And there, when bitter word or fare 

The service of the youth repaid. 
By stealth, before that holy shrine, 

For grace to bear his wrong, he prayed. 

The steed stamped at the castle gate, 
The boar hunt sounded on the hill ; 

Why stayed the Baron from the chase, 
With looks so stern, and words so ill ? 

" Go, bind yon slave ! and let him learn, 
By scath of fire and strain of cord, 

How ill they speed who give dead saints 
The homage due their living lord ! " 

They bound him on the fearful rack, 

When, through the dungeon's vaulted dark, 

He saw the light of shining robes, 
And knew the face of good St. Mark. 

Then sank the iron rack apart, 

The cords released their cruel clasp, 

The pincers, with their teeth of fire, 
Fell broken from the torturer's grasp. 

And lo ! before the Youth and Saint, 
Barred door and wall of stone gave way ; 

Ami up from bondage and the night 
They passed to freedom and the day ! 

O dreaming monk ! thy tale is true ; — 
O painter ! true thy pencil's art ; 

In tones of hope and prophecy, 
Ye whisper to my listening heart ! 

Unheard no burdened heart's appeal 
Moans up to God's inclining ear ; 

Unheeded by his tender eye, 
Falls to the earth no sufferer's tear. 

For still the Lord alone is God ! 

The pomp and power of tyrant man 
Are scattered at his lightest breath, 

Like chaff before the winnower's fan. 

Not always shall the slave uplift 
His heavy hands to Heaven in vain. 

God's angel, like the good St. Mark, 
Comes shining down to break his chain ! 

O weary ones ! ye may not see 

Your helpers in their downward flight ; 

Nor hear the sound of silver wings 
Slow beating through the* hush of night ! 

But not the less gray Dothan shone, 

With sunbright watchers bending low, 
That Fear's dim eye beheld alone 
. The spear-heads of the Syrian foe. 

There are, who, like the Seer of old, 
Can see the helpers God has sent, 

And how life's rugged mountain-side 
Is white with many an angel tent ! 

They hear the heralds whom our Lord 
Sends down his pathway to prepare ; 

And light, from others hidden, shines 
On their high place of faith and prayer. 

Let such, for earth's despairing ones, 
Hopeless, yet longing to be free, 

Breathe once again the Prophet's prayer : 
" Lord, ope their eyes, that they may see ! " 



110 



THE WELL OF LOCH MAREE.— CALEF IN BOSTON. 



THE WELL OF LOCB MAREE. 48 

C'.i.m on the breast of Loch Mane 

A little isle reposes ; 
A shadow woven of the oak 

And willow o'er it closes. 

Within, a Druid's mound is seen, 
Se1 roun I with stony warders ; 
A fountain, gushing through the turf, 

Flows o'er its grassy I ion Ins. 

Ami whoso bathes therein his brow, 
With care or madness burning, 

Feels nine again his healthful thought 
And sense of peace returning. 

O restless heart and fevered brain, 

Unquiet and unstable, 
That holy well of Loch Maree 

Is more than idle table ! 

Life's changes vex, its discords stun, 
Its glaring sunshine blindeth, 

And blest, is he who on his way 
That fount of healing findeth ! 

The shadows of a humbled will 
And contrite heart are o'er it ; 

Go read its legend — "Trust in God"— 
On Faith's white stones before it. 



TO MY SISTER ; 

WITH A COPY OF " SUPERNATURALISM OF NEW 
ENGLAND." 

Dear Sister ! — while the wise and sage 
Turn coldly from my playful page, 
And count it strange that ripened age 

Should stoop to boyhood's folly ; 
I know that thou wilt judge aright 
Of all which makes the heart more light, 
Or lends one star-gleam to the night 

Of clouded Melancholy. 

Away with weary cares and themes ! — 
Swing wide the moonlit gate of dreams ! 
Leave free once more the land which teems 

With wonders and romances ! 
Where thou, with clear discerning eyes, 
Shalt rightly read the truth which lies 
Beneath the quaintly masking guise 

Of wild and wizard fancies. 

Lo ! once again our feet wc set 

On still green wood-paths, twilight wet, 

By lonely Indoles, whose waiters fret 

The roots of spectral beeches ; 
Again the hearth-fire glimmers o'er 
Home's whitewashed wall and painted floor, 
And young eyes widening to the lore 

Of faery-folks and witches. 

Dear heart ! — the legend is not vain 
Which lights that holy hearth again, 
And calling back from care and pain, 

And death's funereal sadness, 
Draws round its old familiar blaze 
The clustering groups of happier days, 
And lends to Sober manhood's gaze 

A glimpse of childish gladness. 

And, knowing how my life hath been 
A weary work of tongue and pen, 



A long, harsh strife with strong willed men, 

Thou wilt not chide my turning 
To eon, at time.-., an idle rhyme. 
To pluck a flower from childhood's clime, 
Or listen, at Life's noonday chime, 
For the sweet bells of Morning ! 



ADTUMM THOUGHTS. 

PROM "MARGARET SMITH'S JOURNAL." 

Gone hath the Spring, with all its flowers, 

And gone the Summer's pomp and show, 
And Autumn, in his leafless bowers, 
Is waiting for the Winter's snow. 

I said to Earth, so cold and gray, 
" An emblem of myself thou art; " 

"Not so," tin: Earth did seem to say, 

" For Spring shall warm my frozen heart." 

I soothe my wintry sleep with dreams 

Of warmer sun and softer rain, 
And wait to hear the sound of streams 

And songs of merry birds again. 

But thou, from whom the Spring hath gone, 
For whom the flowers no longer blow, 

Who standest blighted and forlorn, 
Like Autumn waiting for the snow : 

No hope is thine of sunnier hours, 
Thy Winter shall no more depart ; 

No Spring revive thy wasted flowers, 
Nor Summer warm thy frozen heart. 



CALEF IN BOSTON. 
lG'.tS. 

In the solemn days of old, 

Two men met in Boston town, 

One a tradesman frank and bold, 
One a preacher of renown. 

Cried the last, in bitter tone, — 
"Poisoner of the wells of truth ! 

Satan's hireling, thou has sown 
With his tares the heart of youth ! 

Spake the simple tradesman then, — 
"God be judge ' twixt thou and I ; 

All thou knowest of truth hath been 
Unto men like thee a lie. 

"Falsehoods which we spurn to-day 
Were the truths of long ago ; 

Let the dead boughs fall away, 
Fresher shall the living grow. 

" God is good ami <!od is light, 
In this faith I rest secure ; 

Evil can but serve the right, 
Over all shall love endure. 

"Of your spectra] puppet play 
I have traced the cunning wires; 

Come what will, I needs must say, 
God is true, and ye are liars." 

When the thought of man is free, 
Error fear- its lightest tones; 

So the priest cried, " Sadducee ! " 
And the people took up stones. 



TO PIUS IX.— ELLIOTT. 



Ill 



In the ancient burying-ground, 
Side by side the twain now lie, — 

One with humble grassy mound, 
One with marbles pale and high. 

But the Lord hath blest the seed 

Which that tradesman scattered then, 

And the preacher's spectral cited 
Chills no more the blood of men. 

Let i* trust, to one is known 
Perfect love which casts out fear, 

While the other's joys atone 
For the wrong lie suffered here. 



TO PIUS IX. ■■■" 

The cannon's brazen lips arc cold ; 

No red shell blazes down the air ; 
And street and tower, and temple old, 

Are silent as despair. 

The Lombard stands no more at bay, — 
Rome's fresh young life has bled in vain: 

The ravens scattered by the day 
Come back with night again. 



Now, while the fratricides of France 
Are treading on the neck of Rome, 

Hider at Gaeta, — seize thy chance ! 
Coward and cruel, come ! 

Creep now from Naples' bloo< I y skirt ; 

Thy mummer's part was acted well, 
While Rome, with steel and tire begirt, 

Before thy crusade fell ! 

Her death-groans answered to thy prayer ; 

Thy chant, the drum and bugle-call ; 
Thy lights, the burning villa's glare ; 

Thy beads, the shell and ball ! 

Let Austria clear thy way, with hands 
Foul from Ancona's cruel sack, 

And Naples, with his dastard bands 
Of murderers, lead thee back ! 

Rome's lips are dumb ; the orphan's wail, 
The mother's shriek, thou may'st not hear 

Above the faithless Frenchman's hail, 
The unsexed shaveling's cheer ! 

Go, bind on Rome her cast-off weight, 
The double curse of crook and crown, 

Though woman's Bcorn and manhood's hate 
From wall and roof flash down ! 

Nor heed those blood-stains on the wall, 
Not Tiber's flood can wash away, 

Where, in thy stately Quirinal, 
Thy mangled victims lay ! 

Let the world murmur ; let its cry 
Of horror and disgust be heard ; — 

Truth stands alone ; thy coward lie 
Is backed by lance and sword ! 

The cannon ol St. Angelo, 

And chanting priest, and clanging bell, 
And beat of drum ami bugle blow, 

Shall greet thy coming well ! 



Let lips of iron and tongues of slaves 
Fit welcome give thee ; — for her part, 

Rome, frowning o'er her new-made graves, 
Shall curse thee from her heart ! 

No wreaths of sad Campagna's flowers 
Shall childhood in thy pathway fling ; 

No garlands from their ravaged bowers 
Shall Term's maidens bring ; 

But, hateful as that tyrant old, 
The mocking witness of his crime, 

In thee shall loathing eyes behold 
The Nero of our time ! 

Stand where Rome's blood was freest shed, 
Mock Heaven with impious thanks, and call. 

Its curses on the patriot dead, 
Its blessings on the Gaul ! 

Or sit upon thy throne of lies, 

A poor, mean idol, blood-besmeared, 

Whom even its worshippers despise,-^ 
Unhonored, unrevered ! 

Yet, Scandal of the World ! from thee 
One needful truth mankind shall learn, — 

That kings and priests to Liberty 
And God are false in turn. 

Earth wearies of them ; and the long 

Meek sufferance of the Heavens doth fail ; 

Woe for weak tyrants, when the strong 
Wake, struggle, and prevail ! 

Not vainly Roman hearts have bled 
To feed the Crozier and the Crown, 

If, roused thereby, the world shall tread 
The twin-born vampires down ! 



ELLIOTT. 01 

Hands off! thou tithe-fat plunderer ! play 

No trick of priestcraft here ! 
Back, puny lordling ! darest thou lay 

A hand on Elliott's bier? 
Alive, your rank and pomp, as dust, 

Beneath his feet he trod : 
He knew the locust, swarm that cursed 

The harvest-tields of God. 

On these pale lips, the smothered thought 

Which England's millions feel, 
A fierce and fearful splendor caught, 

As from his forge the steel. 
Strong-armed as Thor, — a shower of fire 

His smitten anvil flung ; 
God's curse, Earth's wrong, dumb Hunger's ire, 

He gave them all a tongue ! 

Then let the poor man's horny hands 

Bear up the mighty dead, 
And labor's swart and stalwart bands 

Behind as mourners tread. 
Leave cant and craft their baptized bounds, 

Leave rank its minster floor ; 
( rive Kngland's green and daisied grounds 

The poet of the poor ! 

Lay down upon his Sheaf's green verge 

That brave old heart of oak, 
With fitting dirge from sounding forge, 

And pall of furnace smoke ! 
Where whirls the stone its dizzy rounds, 

And axe and sledge are swung, 
And, timing to their stormy sounds, 

His stormy lays are sung. 



.!12 



ICHABOD— THE CHRISTIAN TOURISTS.— THE MEN OF OLD. 



There let the peasant's step be heard, 

The grinder chant his rhyme; 
Nor pal ron's praise aor dainty word 

Befit 9 i he man or I ime. 
No soft Lament nor dreamer's sigh 

For i i i 1 1 1 whose words were bread, — 
The Runic rhyme and spell whereby 

The Eoodli ss poor were Eed ! 

Pile up thy tombs of rank and pride, 

( » England, as thou wilt ! 
With ] >< >n 1 1 > to nameless worth denied 

Emblazon titled guilt ! 

Nd pari or lot in these we claim ; 

But, o'er the sounding wave, 
A common light to Elliott's name, 

A freehold in his grave ! 



ICHABOD ! 

So fallen ! so lost ! the light withdrawn 

Which once he wore ! 
The glory from his gray hairs gone 

Forevermore ! 

Revile him not, — the Tempter hath 

A snare for all ; 
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath, 

Befit his fall ! 

O, dumb be passion's stormy rage, 

When he who might 
Have lighted up and led his age, 

Falls back in night. 

Scorn ! would the angels laugh, to mark 

A bright .sold driven, 
Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark, 

From hope and heaven ! 

Let not the land once proud of him 

Insult him now, 
Nor brand with deeper shame his dim, 

Dishonored brow. 

But let its humbled sons, instead, 

From sea to lake, 
A long lament, as for the dead, 

In sadness make. 

Of all we loved and honored, naught 

Save power remains, — 
A fallen angel's pride of thought, 

Still strong in chains. 

All else is gone ; from those great eyes 

The soul has fled : 
Winn faith is lost, when honor dies, 

The man is dead ! 

Then, pay the reverence of old days 

To his dead fame ; 
Walk backward, with averted gaze, 

And hide the shame ! 



THE CHRISTIAN TOURISTS. 53 

No aimless wanderers, by the fiend Unrest 

Goaded from shore to shore; 
No schoolmen, turning, in their classic quest, 

Tin- leaves of empire o'er. 
Simple of faith, and bearing in their hearts 

The love of man and (k>d, 
Isles ol old song, the Moslem's ancient marts, 

And Scythia's steppes, they trod. 



Where tho long shadows of the fir and pine 

In the night sun are cast, 
And the deep heart of many a Norland mine 

Quakes at each riving blast; 
Where, in basbaric grandeur, Moskwa stands, 

A baptized Scythian queen, 
With Europe's aits and Asia's jewelled hands, 

The North and East between ! 

Where still, through vales of ( Grecian fable, stray 

The classic forms ol' yore, 
And beauty smiles, new risen from the spray, 

A ad I ban weepa once more ; 
Where every tongue in Smyrna's mart resounds; 

And Stamboul from the s< a 
Lifts her tall minarets over burial-grounds 

Black with the cypress-tree ! 

From Malta's temples to the gates of Rome, 

Following the track of Paul, 
And where the Alps gird round the Switzer's 
home 

Their vast, eternal wall ; 
They paused not by the ruins of old time, 

They scanned no pictures rare, 
Nor lingered where the snow-locked mountains 
climb 

The cold abyss of air ! 

But unto prisons, where men lay in chains, 

To haunts where Hunger pined, 
To kings and courts forgetful of the pains 

And wants of human-kind, 
Scattering sweet words, and quiet deeds of good, 

Along their way, like flowers, 
Or pleading, as Christ's freemen only could, 

With princes and with powers ; 

Their single aim the purpose to fulfil 

Of Truth, from day to day, 
Simply obedient to its guiding will, 

They held their pilgrim way. 
Yet dream not, hence, the beautiful and old 

Were wasted on their sight, 
Who in the school of Christ had learned to hold 

All outward things aright. 

Not less to them the breath of vineyards blown 

From off the Cyprian shore, 
Not less for them the Alps in sunset shone, 

That man they valued more, 
A life of beauty lends to all it sees 

The beauty of its thought ; 
And fairest forms and sweetest harmonics 

Make glad its way, unsought. 

In sweet accordancy of praise and love, 

The singing waters run ; 
Ami sunset mountains wear in light above 

The smile of duty done ; 
Sure stands the promise, — ever to the meek 

A heritage is given ; 
Nor lose they Earth who, single-hearted, seek 
The righteousness of Heaven ! 



THE MEN OF OLD. 

Well speed thy mission, bold Iconoclast ! 
Yet all unworthy of its trust thou art, 
If, with dry eye, and cold, unloving heart, 

Thou tread' st the solemn Pantheon of the Past, 
By the great Future's dazzling hope made blind 
To all the beauty, power, and truth behind. 

Not without reverent awe shouldst thou put by 
The cypress branches and the amaranth blooms, 
Where, with clasped bauds of prayer, upon 
their tombs 



THE PEACE CONVENTION AT BRUSSELS. 



113 



The effigies of old confessors lie, 
<;< iii's witnesses ; bhe voices of his will, 
Heard in the slow march of t lie centuries still ! 
Such were the men at whose rebuking frown. 
Dark with God's wrath, the tyrant's knee went 

down ; 
Such from the terrors of the guilty drew 
The vassal's freedom and the poor man's due. 

St. Ans. lm (may he rest forevermore 

In Heaven's sweet peace ! ) forbade, of old, the 
sale 

Of men as slaves, and from the sacred pale 
Hurled the Northumbrian buyers of the poor. 
To ransom souls from bonds and evil fate 
St. Ambrose melted down the sacred plate, — 
[mage of saint, the chalice, and the pix, 
es of gold, and silver candlesticks. 
"Man is worth moke than temples!" he 

replied 
To such as came his holy work to chide. 
And brave Cesarius, stripping altars bare, 

And coining from the Abbey's golden hoard 
The captive's freedom, answered to the prayer 

Or threat of those whose tierce zeal for the Lord 
Stifle 1 their love of man,—" An earthen dish 

The last sad supper of the Master bore: 
Most miserable sinners ! do ye wish 

More than your Lord, and grudge his dying 
poor 
What your own pride and not his need requires ''. 

Souls, than these shining gauds, he values 
more ; 
Mercy, not sacrifice, his heart desires ! " 
O faithful worthies ! resting far behind 
In your dark ages, since ye fell asleep, 
Much has been done for truth and human-kind, — 
Shadows are scattered wherein ye groped blind; 
Man claims his birthright, freer pulses leap 
Through peoples driven in your day like sheep ; 
Yet, like your own, our age's sphere of light, 
Though widening still, is walledaiound by night ; 
With slow, reluctant eye, the Church has read, 
Sceptic at heart, the lessons of its Head ; 
Counting, too oft, its living members less 
Thau the wall's garnish and the pulpit's dress; 
World-moving zeal, with power to bless and feed 
Life's fainting pilgrims, to their utter need, 
Instead of bread, holds out the stone of creed ; 
Sect builds and worships where its wealth and 

pride 
And vanity stand shrined and deified, 
Careless that in the shadow of its walls 
God's living temple into ruin falls. 
We need, methinks, the prophet-hero still, 
Saints true of life, and martyrs strong of will, 
To tread the land, even now, as Xavi r trod 

The streets of Goa, barefoot, with his bell, 
Proclaiming freedom in the name of God, 

And startling tyrants with the fear of hell ! 

Soft words, smooth prophecies, are doubtless 
well ; 
But to rebuke the age's popular crime, 
We need the souls of fire, the hearts of that old 
time ! 



THE PEACE CONVENTION AT BRUS- 
SELS. 

Still in fchy streets, O Paris ! doth the stain 
Of bloo I defy the cleansing autumn rain ; 
Still breaks ! tfessina's ruins through, 

And Napli s mo irns that new Bartholomew, 
Winn squalid beggary, for a dole of bread, 
At a crowned murderer's beck of license, fed 
The yawning trenches with her noble dead; 
Still,' doomed Vienna, through thy stately halls 



The shell goes crashing and the red shot falls, 
And, leagued to crush thee, on the Danube's 

side, 
The bearded Croat and Bosniak spearman ride; 
Still in that vale where Himalaya's snow 
Melts round the cornfields and the vines below, 
The Sikh's hot cannon, answering ball for ball, 
Flames in the breach of Moultan's shattered 

wall ; 
On Chenab's side the vulture seeks the slain, 
And Sutlej paints with blood its banks again. 
" What folly, then," the faithless critic cries, 
With sneering lip, and wise world-knowing eyes, 
" While fort to fort, and post to post, repeat 
The ceaseless challenge of the war-drum's beat, 
And round the green earth, to the church-bell's 

chime, 
The morning drum-roll of the camp keeps time, 
To dream of peace amidst a world in arms, 
Of swords to ploughshares changed by Scriptural 

charms. 
Of nations, drunken with the wine of blood, 
Staggering to take the Pledge of Brotherhood, 
Like tipplers answering Father Mathew's call, — 
Th? sullen Spaniard, and the mad-cap Gaul, 
The bull-dog Briton, yielding but with life, 
Tiie Yankee swaggering with his bowie-knife, 
The Russ, from banquets with the vulture 

shared, 
The blood still dripping from his amber beard, 
Quitting their mad Berserker dance to hear 
The dull, meek droning of a drab-coat seer; 
Leaving the sport of Presidents and Kings, 
Where men for dice each titled gambler flings, 
To meet alternate on the Seine and Thames, 
For tea and gossip, like old country dames ! 
No ! let the cravens plead the weakling's cant, 
Let Cobden cipher, and let Vincent rant, 
Let Sturge preach peace to democratic throngs, 
And Burritt, stammering through his hundred 

" tongues, 
Repeat, in all, his ghostly lessons o'er, 
Timed to the pauses of the battery's roar ; 
Check Ban or Kaiser with the barricade 
Of " Olive-leaves" and Resolutions made; 
Spike guns with pointed Scripture-texts, and 

hope 
To capsize navies with a windy trope ; 
Still shall the glory and the pomp of War 
Along their train the shouting millions draw ; 
Still dusty Labor to the passing Brave 
His cap shall doff, and Beauty's kerchief wave ; 
Still shall the bard to Valor tune his song, 
Still Hero-worship kneel before the Strong ; 
Rosy and sleek, the sable-gowned divine, 
O'er his third bottle of suggestive wine, 
To plumed and sworded auditors, shall prove 
Their trade accordant with the Law of Love ; 
And Church for State, and State for Church, 

shall fight. 
And both agree, that Might alone is Right ! " 
Despite of sneers like these, faithful few, 
Who dare to hold God's word and witness true, 
Whose clear-eyed faith transcends our evil time, 
And o'er the present wilderness of crime 
Sees the calm future, with its robes of green, 
Its fleece-flecked mountains, and soft streams be- 
tween, — 
Still keep the path which duty bids ye tread, 
Though worldly wisdom shake the cautious head ; 
No truth from Heaven descends upon our sphere, 
Without the greeting of the sceptic's sneer ; 
Denied and mocked at, till its blessings fall, 
Common as dew and sunshine, over all. 

Then, o'er Earth's war-field, till the strife shall 

cease, 
Like Morven's harpers, sing jour song of peace ; 
As in old fable rang the Thracian's lyre, 
Midst howl of fiends and roar of penal fire, 



114 



THE WISH OF TO-DAY.— SEED-TIME AND HARVEST. 






Till the fierce din fco pleasing murmurs fell 
And love subdued the maddened heart of hell. 
Lend, once again, that holy song a tongue, 
Which angels of the Advent sang, 

Their cradle anthem for the Saviour's birth, 
( Hory in God, and peace unto the earth ! 
Through the mad discoid send that calming 

w 111 (I 

Which wind and wave on wild < renesarel li heard, 
Lift in Christ's name his( !ross against the Sword ! 
Not vain the vision which the prophets saw, 
Skirting with green the fiery waste of war. 
Through the hot sand-gleam, looming soft and 

calm 
On the sky's rim, the fountain-shading palm. 
Still lives for Earth, which fiends so long have 

trod. 
The great hope resting on the truth of God,— 
Evil shall cease and Violence pass away, 
And the tired world breathe free through a long 

Sabbath day. 
11th mo., 1848. 



THE WISH OF TO-DAY. 

I ask not now for gold to gild 

With mocking shine a weary frame; 

The yearning of the mind is stilled, — 
I ask not now for Fame. 

A rose-cloud, dimly seen above, 

Melting in heaven's blue depths away, 

O, sweet, fond dream of human Love ! 
For thee I may not pray. 

But, bowed in lowliness of mind, 

I make my humble wishes known, — 
I only ask a will resigned, 

Father, to thine own ! 

To-day, beneath thy chastening eye 

1 crave alone for peace and lest, 
Submissive in thy hand to lie, 

And feel that it is best. 

A marvel seems the Universe, 
A miracle our Life and Death ; 

A mystery which I cannot pierce, 
Around, above, beneath. 

In vain I task my aching brain, 
In vain the sage's thought I soan, 

I only feel how weak and vain, 
How poor and blind, is man. 

And now my spirit sighs for home, 
And longs for light whereby to see, 

And, like a weary child, would come, 
O Father, unto thee ! 

Though oft, like letters traced on sand, 
My weak resolves have passed away, 

In mercy lend thy helping hand 
Unto my prayer to-day ! 



OUR STATE. 

The South-land boasts its teeming cane, 
The prairied West, its heavy grain, 
And sunset's radiant- gates Unfold 
On rising marts and sands of gold ! 

Rough, bleak, and hard, our little State 
Is scant of soil, of limits strait ; 



Her yellow sands are sands alone, 
Her only mines are ice and stone ! 

From Autumn frost to April rain, 
Too long her winter woods complain ; 
Prom budding flower to falling leaf, 
Her summer time is all too brief. 

Yet, on her rocks, and on her sands, 
And wintry bills, the school house stands, 
And what her rugged soil denies, 
The harvest of the mind supplies. 

The riches of the Commonwealth 

Are free, strong minds, and hearts of health; 

And more to her than gold or grain, 

The cunning hand and cultured brain. 

For well she keeps her ancient stock, 
The stubborn strength of Pilgrim Rock; 
And still maintains, with milder laws, 
And clearer light, the Good Old Cause ! 

Nor heeds the sceptic's puny hands, 

While near her school the church-spire stands; 

Nor fears the blinded bigot's rule, 

While near her church -spire stands the school. 



ALL'S WELL. 

The clouds, which rise with thunder, slake 

Our thirsty souls with rain ; 
The blow most dreaded falls to break 

From off our limbs a chain ; 
And wrongs of man to man but make 

The love of God more plain. 
As through the shadowy lens of even 
The eye looks farthest into heaven 
On gleams of star and depths of blue 
The glaring sunshine never knew ! 



SEED-TIME AND HARVEST. 

As o'er his furrowed fields which lie 
Beneath a coldly-dropping sky, 
Yet chill with winter's melted snow, 
The husbandman goes forth to sow. 

Thus, Freedom, on the bitter blast 
The ventures of thy seed we cast, 
And trust to warmer sun and rain 
To swell the germs and fill the grain. 

Who calls thy glorious service hard ? 
Who deems it not its own reward ? 
Who, for its trials, counts it less 
A cause of praise and thankfulness ? 

It may not be our lot to wield 
The sickle in the ripened field ; 
Nor ours to hear, on summer eves, 
The reaper's song among the sheaves. 

Yet where our duty's task is wrought 
In unison with God's great thought, 
The near and future blend in one, 
And whatsoe'er is willed, is done ! 

And ours the grateful service whence 
('nines, day by day, the recompense ; 
The hope, the trust, the purpose stayed, 
The fountain and the noonday shade. 



TO A. K.— THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS. 



115 



Aiul were this life the utmost span, 
The only end and aim of man, 

Better the toil of fields like tl 

Than waking dream and slothful ease. 

But life, though falling like our grain, 
Like that revives and springs again ; 
And, early called, how blest are they 
Who wait in heaven their harvest-day ! 



TO A. K. 

ON RECEIVING A BASKET OF SEA-MOSSES. 

Thanks for thy gift 
Of ocean flowers, 
Born where the golden drift 
Of the slant sunshine falls 
Down the green, tremulous walls 
Of water, to the cool still coral bowers, 
Where, under rainbows of perpetual showers, 
God's gardens of the deep 
His patient angels keep ; 
Gladdening the dim, strange solitude 
With fairest forms and hues, and thus 
Forever teaching us 
The lesson which the many-colored skies, 
The flowers, aud leaves, and painted butterflies, 
The deer's branched antlers, the gay bird that 

flings 
The tropic sunshine from its golden wings, 
Tlie brightness of the human countenance, 
Its play of smiles, the magic of a glance, 
Forevermore repeat, 
In varied tones and sweet, 
That beauty, in and of itself, is good. 

O kind and generous friend, o'er whom 

The sunset hues of Time are cast, 

Painting, upon the overpast 

And scattered clouds of noonday sorrow 

The promise of a fairer morrow. 
An earnest of the better life to come ; 

The binding of the spirit broken, 

The warning to the erring spoken, 
The comfort of the sai I, 

The eye to see, the hand to cidl 



Of common things the beautiful, 

The absent heart made glad 
By simple gift or graceful token 
Of love it needs as daily food, 
All own one Source, and all are good ! 
Hence, tracking sunny cove and reach, 
Where spent waves glimmer up the beach, 
And toss their gifts of weed and shell 
From foamy curve and combing swell, 
No unbefitting task was thine 

To weave these (lowers so soft and fair 
In unison with His design 

Who loveth beauty everywhere; 

: I makes in every zone and clime, 

In ocean and in upper air, 
"All things beautiful in their time." 

For not alone in tones of awe and power 

He speaks to man ; 
The cloudy horror of the thunder-shower 
His rainbows span ; 
And where the caravan 
Winds o'er the desert, leaving, as in air 
The crane-flock leaves, no trace of passage there, 

He gives the weary eye 
The palm-leaf shadow for the hot noon hours, 
And on its branches dry 
Calls out the acacia's, flowers ; 
And where the dark shaft pierces down 

Beneath the mountain roots, 
Seen by the miner's lamp alone, 
The star-like crystal shoots ; 
So, where, the winds and waves below, 
The coral-branched gardens grow, 
His climbing weeds and mosses show, 
Like foliage, on each stony bough, 
Of varied hues more strangely gay 
Than forest leaves in autumn's day ; — 
Thus evermore, 
On sky, and wave, and shore, 
An all-pervading beauty seems to say : 
< rod's love and power are one ; and they, 
Who, like the thunder of a sultry day, 
Smite to restore, 
And they, who, like the gentle wind, uplift 
The petals of the dew-wet flowers, and drift 

Their perfume on the air, 
Alike may serve Him, each, with their own gift, 
Making their lives a prayer ! 



THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS, 

AND OTHER POEMS. 
1852. 



THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS. 

"I do believe, and yet, in grief, 
I pray for help to unbelief ; 
For needful strength aside to lay 
The daily cumberings of my way. 

" I 'm sick at heart of craft and cant, 
Sick of the crazed enthusiast's rant, 
Profession's smooth hypocrisies, 
And creeds of iron, and lives of ease. 

" I ponder o'er the sacred word, 

I read the record of our Lord ; 

And, weal: and troubled, envy them 

\Y T ho touched his seamless garment's hem ; — 



" Who saw the tears of love he wept 
A 1 love the grave where Lazarus slept ; 
And heard, amidst the shadows dim 
Of Olivet, his evening hymn. 

" How blessed the swineherd's low estate, 
The beggar crouching at the gate, 
The leper loathly and abhorred. 
Whose eyes of flesh beheld the Lord ! 

" O sacred soil his sandals pressed ! 
Sweet "fountains of Ins noonday rest ! 
O light and air of Palestine, 
Impregnate with his life divine ! 

"(), bear me thither ! Let me look 
On Siloa's pool, and Kedron's brook, — 



116 



THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS. 



k i, . I .,t ( rethsemane, and by 
Gennesaret walk, before l die ! 

" M thinks this cold and northern night 
\\ ould mi ii before t b&1 ( (orient tight ; 
Ami, wet by Sermon's dew and nun, 
My childhood's Eaith revive again ! " 

So spake my friend, one autumn day, 
Where the still river slid away 
Beneal b as, and a bove the brown 
Red curtains of the woods shut down. 

Then said I, — for I could not brook 
Tin' mute appealing of his look, — 
" I, too, am weak, and faith is small, 
And blindness happeneth unto all. 

" Yet, sometimes glimpses on my sight. 
Through present wrong, the eternal right ; 
And, step by step, since time began, 
1 see the ste;id\ gain of man ; 

"That all of good the past hath had 
Remains to make our own time glad, — 
Our common daily life divine 
And every land a Palestine. 

41 Thou weariest of thy present state ; 
What gain to thee time's holiest date ? 
The doubter now perchance had been 
As High Priest or as Pilate then ! 

"What thought Chorazin's scribes'? What faith 
In Him had Naiu and Nazareth ? 
( )!' the few followers whom* He led 
One sold him, — all forsook and fled. 

" O friend ! we need nor rock nor sand, 
Nor storied stream of Morning-Land ; 
The heavens are glassed in Merrimack, — 
What more could Jordan render back '? 

" We lack but open eye .and ear 
To find the Orient's marvels here ; — 
The still small voice in autumn's hush, 
Yon maple wood the burning bush. 

" For still the new transcends the old, 
In signs and tokens manifold ; — 
Slaves rise up men ; the olive waves, 
With roots deep set in battle graves ! 

" Through the harsh noises of our day 
A Low, sweet prelude finds its way ; 
Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear, 
A light is breaking, calm and clear. 

" That son- of Love, now low and far, 
Erelong shall swell from star to star ! 
That light, the breaking day, which tips 
The golden spired Apocalypse ! " 

Then, when my good friend shook his head, 
Anil, sighing, sadly smiled, I said : 
" Thou mind'st me of a story told 
In rail Bemardin's leaves of gold" " ;| 

\n.| while (lie slanted sunbeams wove 
The shadows of the Erosl stained grove, 
And, picturing all, the river ran 
O'er cloud and wood, 1 thus began: 



In Mount Valerien's chestnut wood 
The < Ihapel of the Hermits stood ; 
And thither, at the close of day. 
Came two old pilgrims, worn and gray. 



One, whose impetuous youth defied 
The storms of Baikal's wintry side, 
And mused and dreamed where tropic day 
Flamed o'er his lost Virginia's bay. 

His simple tale of love and woe 
All hearts had melted, high or low; — 
A blissful pain, a sweet distress, 
Immortal in its tenderness. 

Yet, while above his charmed page 
Heat quick the young heart of his age, 
lb walked amidst the crowd unknown, 
A sorrowing old man, strange and lone. 

A homeless, troubled age, — the gray- 
Pale setting of a weary day ; 
Too dull Lis ear for voice of praise, 
Too sadly worn his brow for bays. 

Pride, lust of power and glory, slept ; 
Yet still his heart its young dream kept, 
And, wandering like the deluge-dove, 
Still sought the resting-place of love. 

And, mateless, childless, envied more 
The peasant's welcome from his door 
By smiling eyes at eventide. 

Than kingly gifts or lettered pride. 

Until, ir. place of wife and child, 
All-pitying Nature on him smiled, 
And gave to him the golden keys 
To all her inmost sanctities. 

Mild Druid of her wood-paths dim ! 
She laid her great heart bare to him, 
Its loves and sweet accords ; — he saw 
The beauty of her perfect law. 

The language of her signs he knew, 
What notes her cloudy clarion blew ; 
The rhythm of autumn's forest dyes, 
The hymn of sunset's painted skies. 

And thus he seemed to hear the soiiij 
Which swept, of old, the stars along ; 
i And to his eyes the earth once more 
Its fresh and primal beauty wore. 

Who sought with him, from summer air, 
And field and wood, a balm for care ; 
And bathed in light of sunset skies 
His tortured nerves and weary eyes'? 

His fame on all the winds had flown; * 
(lis woids had shaken crypt and throne ; 
Like fire, on camp and court and cell 
They dropped, and kindled as they fell. 

Beneath the pomps of state, below 
The mitred juggler's masque and show, 
A prophecy — a vague hope — Kin 
His burning thought from man to man 

For peace or reBt too well he saw 
The fraud of priests, the wrong of law, 
And felt how hard, between the two, 
Their breath of pain the millions drew. 

A prophet-utterance, strong and wild, 
The weakness ol all iinweaned child, 
A sun-bright hope for human kind, 
And self despair, ill him combined. 

lie loathed the false, yet lived not true 
To half the glorious truths he knew ; 
The doubt, the discord, and the sin, 
He mourned without, he felt within. 



THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS. 



117 



Untroil by him the path he showed, 
Sweet pictures on his easel glowed 
Of simple faith, and loves of home, 

And virtue's golden days to conic. 

Hut weakness, shame, and folly made 
The foil to all his pen portrayed ; 
Still, where his dreamy splendors shone, 
The shadow of himself was thrown. 

Lord, what is man, whose thought, at times, 
Up to thy sevenfold brightness climbs, 
While still his grosser instinct clings 
To earth, like other creeping things ! 

So rich in words, in acts so mean ; 

Wo high, so low ; chance-swung between 

The foulness of the penal pit 

And Truth's clear sky, millennium-lit ! 

Vain pride of star -lent genius ! — vain 
Quick'fancy and creative brain, 
Unblest by prayerful sacrifice, 
Absurdly great, or weakly wise ! 

Midst yearnings for a truer life, 
Without were fears, within was strife ; 
And --till his wayward act denied 
The perfect good for which he sighed. 

The love he sent forth void returned ; 

The fame that crowned him scorched and burned, 

Burning, yet cold and drear and lone, — 

A fire-mount in a frozen zone ! 

Like that the gray-haired sea-king passed, 54 
Seen southward from his sleety mast, 
About whose brows of changeless frost 
A wivath-of flame the wild winds tossed. 

Far round the mournful beauty played 
Of lambent light and purple shade, 
Lost on the fixed and dumb despair 
Of frozen earth and sea and air ! 

A man apart, unknown, unloved 
By those whose wrongs his soul had moved, 
He bore the ban of Church and State, 
The good man's fear, the bigot's hate ! 

Forth from the city's noise and throng, 
Its pomp and shame, its sin and wrong, 
The twain that summer day had strayed 
To Mount Valerien's chestnut shade. 

To them the green fields and the wood 
Lent something of their quietude, 
And golden -tinted sunset seemed 
Prophetical of all they dreamed. 

The hermits from their simple cares 
The bell was calling home to prayers, 
, listening to its sound, the twain 
Seemed lapped in childhood's trust again. 

Wide open stood the chapel door; 

A sweet old music, swelling o'er 

Low prayerful murmurs, issued thence, — 

The Litanies of Providence ! 

Then Rousseau spake : ' ' Where two or three 
In His name meet, He there will be ! " 
And then, in silence, on their knees 
They sank beneath the chestnut-trees. 

As to the blind returning light, 
As daybreak to the Arctic night, 
Old faith revived : the doubts of years 
Dissolved in reverential tears. 



That gush of feeling overpast, 
"Ah me ! " Bernardin sighed at last, 
" I would thy bitterest foes could see 
Thy heart as it is seen of me ! 

"No church of God hast thou denied; 
Thou hast but spurned in scorn aside 
A base ami hollow counterfeit, 
Profaning the pure name of it ! 

*' With dry dead moss and marish weeds 
His fire the western herdsman feeds, 
And greener from the ashen plain 
The sweet spring grasses rise again. 

" Nor thunder-peal nor mighty wind 
Disturb the solid sky behind ; 
And through the cloud the red bolt rends 
The calm, still smile of Heaven descends ! 

"Thus through the world, like bolt and blast, 
And scourging fire, thy words have passed. 
Clouds break, — the steadfast heavens remain ; 
Weeds burn, — the ashes feed the grain ! 

"But whoso strives with wrong may find 
Its touch pollute, its darkness blind; 
And learn, as latent fraud is shown 
In others' faith, to doubt his own. 

" With dream and falsehood, simple trust 
And pftous hope we tread in dust ; 
Lost the calm faith in goodness* — lost 
The baptism of the Pentecost ! 

" Alas ! — the blows for error meant 
Too oft on truth itsetf are spent, 
As through the false and vile and base 
Looks forth her sad, rebuking face. 

" Not ours the Theban's charmed life; 
We come not scathless from the strife ! 
The Python's cod about us clings, 
The trampled Hydra bites and stings ! 

"Meanwhile, the sport of seeming chance, 
The plastic shapes of circumstance, 
What might have been we fondly guess. 
If earlier born, or tempted less. 

"And thou, in these wild, troubled days, 
Misjudged alike in blame and praise, 
Unsought and undeserved the same 
The sceptic's praise, the bigot's blame ; — 

" I cannot doubt, if thou hadst been 
Among the highly favored men 
Who walked on earth with Fenelon, 
He would have owned thee as his son ; 

" And, bright with wings of cherubim 
Visibly waving over him. 
Seen through his life, the Church had seemed. 
All that its old confessors dreamed. 

" I would have been," Jean Jaques replied, 
" The humblest servant at his side, 
Obscure, unknown, content to see 
How beautiful man's life may be ! 

" O, more than thrice-blest relic, more 
Than solemn rite or sacred lore, 
The holy life of one who trod 
The foot-marks of the Christ of God ! 

" Amidst a blinded world he saw 

The oneness of the Dual law ; 

That Heaven's sweet peace on Earth began, 

And God was loved through love of man. 



US 



THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMTTS. 



" He lived the Truth which reconciled 
The strong mail Reason, Faith the child: 
In trim belief and act were one, 
The homilies of duty done ! " 

So speaking, through the twilight graj 

The two old pilgrims went their way. 
What seeds of fife tha.tr day wore sown 
The heavenly watchers knew alone. 

Time passed, ami Autumn came to fold 
( iu'rii Summer in her brown and gold ; 
Time passed, and Winter's tears of Bnow 
Dropped on the grave-mound of Rousseau. 

" The tree renia.inetli where it, fell, 

The pained on earth is pained in hell ! " 
So priestcraft Erom its altars cursed 

The mournful doubts its Ealseh I nursed. 

Ah ! well of old the Psalmist prayed, 
" Thy hand, not man's, on me be laid ! " 
Earth frowns below, Heaven weeps above, 
And man is hate, but God is love ! 

No Hermits now the wanderer sees, 
Nor chapel with its chestnut-trees; 
A morning dream, a tale that's told, 
The wave of change o'er all has rolled. 

Yet lives the lesson of that day ; 
And from its twilight cool and gray 
Comes n]> a low, sad whisper, "Make 
The truth thine own, for truth's own sake. 

"Why wait to see in thy brief span 
Its perfect flower and fruit in man ? 
No saintly touch can save ; no balm 
Of healing hath the martyr's palm. 

" Midst soulless forms, and false pretence 
Of spiritual pride and pampered sense, • 
A voice saith, ' What is that to thee ? 
Be true thyself, and follow Me ! ' 

" In days when throne and altar heard 
The wanton's wish, the bigot's word, 
And pomp of state and ritual show 
Scarce hid the loathsome death below, — 

"Midst fawning priests and courtiers foul, 
The losel swarm of crown and cowl, 
White-robed walked Francois Fenelon, 
Stainless as Uriel in the sun ! 

" Yet in his time the stake blazed red, 
The poor were eaten up like bread ; 
Men knew him not : his garment's hem 
No healing virtue had for them. 



" Alas ! no present saint we find ; 
The white cymar gleams far behind, 
Revealed in outline vague, sublime, 
Through telescopic mists of time ! 

"Trust not in man with passing breath, 
lint, in the Lord, old Scripture saith; 
The truth which saves thou ma\st not blend 
With false professor, faithless friend. 

"Search thine own heart. What paineth thee 

In others in thyself may lie ; 

All dust, is frail, all flesh is weak; 

Be thou the true man thou dost seek ! 

" Where now with pain thou treadest trod 
The whitest of the saints of God ! 

To show thee where their feet were set. 
The light which led them shim th yet,. 

" The footprints of the life divine, 
Which marked their path, remain in thine; 
And that great Life, transfused in theirs. 
Awaits thy faith, thy love, thy prayers ! " 

A lesson which I well may heed, 
A word of fitness to my need; 
So from that twilight cool and gray 
Still saith a voice, or seems to say. 

We rose, and slowly homeward turned, 
While down the west the sunset, burned ; 
And, in its light, hill, wood, and tide, 
And human forms seemed glorified. 

The village homes transfigured stood. 
And purple bluffs, whose belting wood 
Across the waters leaned to hold 
The yellow leaves like lamps of gold. 

Then spake my friend : " Thy words arc true ; 
Forever old, forever new, 
These home-seen splendors arc the same 
Which over Eden's sunsets came. 

" To these bowed heavens let wood and hill 
Lift voiceless praise and anthem still ; 
Fall, warm with blessing, over them, 
Light of the New Jerusalem ! 

" Flow on, sweet river, like the stream 
Of John's Apocalyptic dream ! 
This mapled ridge shall Horeb be, 
Yon green-banked lake our Galilee ! 

" Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more 
For olden time and holier shore ; 
God's love and blessing, then and there, 
Arc now and here and everywhere." 



QUESTIONS OF LIFE. 



119 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



QUESTIONS OF LIFE. 

Ami the angel that was sent unto me, whose name 
was Uriel, gave me an answer and said, 

" Thy heart hath gone too far in this world, ami think- 
est thou to comprehend the way of the Mosi High S " 

Then said I. " V. .1. m\ Lord " 

Then Baid he unto me, "Co thy way. weigh me the 
weight of the tiro or measure me the blast Of the wind, 
or call me again the da\ thai is oast." — 3 Esdras, chap. 



A bending staff I would not break, 

A feeble faith I would not shake, 

Nor even rashly pluck away 

The error which sonic truth may stay, 

Whose loss might leave the soul without 

A shield against the shafts of doubt. 

And yet, at times, when over all 

A darker mystery seems to fall, 

(May Cod forgive the child id' dust. 

Who s seks to know, where Faith should trust ! ) 

I raise the questions, old and dark. 

Of Uzdom's tempted patriarch, 

And, speech-confounded, build again 

The baffled tower of Shinar's plain. 

I am : how little more I know ! 
Whence came I ? Whither do I go ? 
A centred self, which feels and is ; 
A cry between the silences ; 
A shadow-birth of clouds at strife 
With sunshine on the hills of life ; 
A shaft from Nature's quiver cast 
Into the Future from tin Past ; 
Between the cradle and the shroud, 
A meteor's flight from cloud to cloud. 

Thorough the vastness, arching all, 

I see the great stars rise and fall, 

The rounding seasons come and go, 

The tided oceans ebb and flow ; 

The tokens of a central force, 

Whose circles, in their widening course, 

O'erlap and move the universe; 

The workings of the law whence springs 

The rhythmic harmony of things, 

Which shapes in earth the darkling spar, 

And orbs in heaven the morning star. 

Of all I see, in earth and sky, — 

Star, flower, beast, bird, — what part have I ? 

This conscious life, — is it the same 

Which thrills the universal frame, 

Whereby the cavenied crystal shoots, 

And mounts the sap from forest roots, 

Whereby the' exiled wood-bird tells 

When Spring makes green her native dells? 

How feels the stone the pang of birth, 

Which brings its sparkling prism forth V 

The forest-tree the throb which gives 

The life-blood to its new-born leaves? 

Do bird and blossom feel, like me, 

Life's many-folded mystery, — 

The wonder which it is to BE ? 

Or stand I severed and distinct, 

From Nature's chain of life unlinked ? 

Allied to all, yet not the less 

Prisoned in separate consciousness. 

Alone o'erburdened with a sense 

Of life, and cause, and consequence ? 



In vain to me the Sphinx propounds 
The riddle of her sights and sounds ; 
Pack still the vaulted mystery gives 
'I'he echoed question it receives. 
What sings the brook ? What oracle 
Is in the pine-tree's organ swell? 
What may the wind's low burden be? 
The meaning of the moaning sea ? 
The hieroglyphics of the stars ? 
Or clouded sunset's crimson bars? 
I vainly ask, for mocks my skill 
The trick of Nature's cipher still. 

I turn from Nature unto men, 

I ask the stylus and the pen , 

What sang the bards of old ! What meant 

The prophets of the Orient ? 

The rolls oi buried Egypt, hid 

In painted tomb and pyramid ? 

What mean Idumea's arrowy lines, 

Or dusk Flora's monstrous signs ? 

How speaks the primal thought of man 

From the grim carvings of Copan? 

Where rests the secret? Where the keys 

Of the old death-bolted mysteries? 

Alas ! the dead retain their trust; 

Dust hath no answer from the dust. 

The great enigma still unguessed, 

Unanswered the eternal quest; 

I gather up the scattered rays 

Of wisdom in the early days, 

Faint gleams and broken, like the light 

Of meteors in a northern night, 

Betraying to the darkling earth 

The unseen sun which gave them birth ; 

I listen to the sibyl's chant, 

The voice of priest and hierophant ; 

1 know what Indian Kreeshna saith, 

And what of life and what of death 

The demon taught to Socrates ; 

And what, beneath his garden-trees 

Slow pacing, with a dream-like tread, 

The solemn-thoughted Plato said ; 

Nor lack I tokens, great or small, 

Of God's clear light in each and all. 

While holding with more dear regard 

The scroll of Hebrew seer and bard, 

The starry pages promise-lit 

With Christ's Evangel over-writ, 

Thy miracle of life and death, 

O holy one of Nazareth ! 

On Aztec ruins, gray and lone, 
The circling serpent coils in stone, — 
Type of the endless and unknown ; 
Whereof we seek the clew to find, 
With groping fingers of the blind ! 
Forever sought, and never found, 
We trace that serpent-symbol round 
Our resting-place, our starting bound ! 
O thriftlessness of dream and guess ! 
O wisdom which is foolishness ! 
Why idly seek from outward things 
The answer inward silence brings; 
Why stretch beyond our proper sphere 
And age, for that which lies so near? 
Why climb the far-off hills with pain, 
A nearer view of heaven to gain ? 
In lowliest depths of bosky dells 



120 



THE PRISONERS OF NAPLES.— MOLOCH IN STATE STREET. 



The hermit < 'ontemplation dwells. 

A fountain's pine hung elope his seat, 
And Lotus twined his silent feet, 
Whence, piercing heaven, with screened sight, 
I [( sees at noon the stars, whose Light 
Shall glorifj bhe coining night. 

Here lei me pause, my quest forego ; 

Enough for me to feel and know 

That He in whom the cause and end, 

The past and future, meet and blend, — 

Who, girt with Ins immensities, 

Our vast and star hung system sees, 

Small as bhe clustered Pleiades, 

Moves not alone the heavenlj quires, 

But waves the spring- time's grassy spires, 

( i-uards not archangel feet alone, 

I Jut. deigns to guide and keep my own ; 

Speaks not alone the words of fate ■ 

Which worlds destroy, and worlds create, 

But whispers in my spirit's ear. 

In tones of love, or warning tear, 

A language none beside may hear. 

To Him, from wanderings long and wild, 
I come, an over-wearied child, 

In cool and shade his peace to find, , 
Like dew-fall settling on my mind. 
Assured that all I know is best, 
And humbly trusting for the rest, 
I turn from Fancy's cloud-built scheme, 
Dark creed, and mournful eastern dream 
Of power, impersonal and cold, 
Controlling all, itself controlled, 
Maker and slave of iron laws, 
Alike- the subject and the cause ; 
From vain philosophies, that try 
The sevenfold gates of mystery, 
And, baffled ever, babble still, 
Word-prodigal of fate and will ; 
From Nature, and her mockery, Art, 
And book and speech of men apart, 
To the still witness in my heart ; 
With reverence waiting to behold 
Hi- Avatar of love untold, 
The Eternal Beauty new and old ! 



THE PRISONERS OF NAPLES. 

I have been thinking of the victims bound 

In Naples, dying for the lack .of air 

And sunshine, in their close, damp cells of pain, 

Where hope is not, and innocence in vain 

Appeals against the torture and the chain ! 

I'nl'ort u nates ! whose crime it was to share 

Our common Loveof freedom, and to dare. 

In its behalf, Rome's harlot triple-crowned, 

And her base pander, the most hateful thing 

Who upon Christian or on Pagan ground 

Makes vile the old heroic name of king. 

() God most merciful ! Father just and kind ! 

Whom man bath bound let thy right hand unbind. 

Or, it' thy purposes of good behind 

Their ills lie hidden, let the sufferers find 

Strong consolations; leave them not to doubt 

Th\ providential care, nor yet without 

The hope whichall tin attributes inspire. 

That not in vain the martyr's robe of fire 

Is worn, nor the sad prisoner's fretting chain; 

Since all who sutler for thy truth send forth, 

Electrical, with every throb of pain. 

Unquenchable sparks, thy own baptismal rain 

< >f in e and spirit ovei all I he earth, 

Making the dead in slavery live again. 

Let t his great hope be w ith i hem, as they lie 

Shut from the light, the greenness, and the sky,— 



Prom the cool waters and the pleasant breeze, 
The smell of flowers, and shade of sumniei 
Hound with the felon lepers, whom disease 
And sins abhorred make loathsome; let them 

share 
Pellico's faith, Poresti's strength to bear 
Years of unutterable torment, stern and still. 
As the chained Titan victor through his will ! 
Comfort them with thy future; let them see 
The day dawn of Italian liberty ; 
For that, with all good things, is hid with Thee, 
And, perfect in thv thought, awaits its tune to 

be! 

I, who have spoken for freedom at the cost 
Of some weak friendships, or some paltry prize 
Of name or place, and more than I have lost 
Have gained in wider reach of sympathies, 
And free communion with the good and wise,. 
May God forbid that I should ever boast 
Such easy self -denial, or repine 
That the strong pulse of health no more is mine ; 
That, overworn at noonday, I must yield 
To other bands the gleaning of the field, — 
A tired on-looker through the day's decline. 
For blest beyond deserving still, and knowing 
That kindly Providence its care is showing 
In the withdrawal as in the bestowing, 
Scarcely I dare for more or less to pray. 
Beautiful yet for me this autumn day 
Melts on its sunset hills ; and, far away, 
For me the Ocean lifts its solemn psalm. 
To me the pine-woods whisper ; and for me 
Yon river, winding through its vales of calm, 
By greenest banks, with asters purple-starred, 
And gentian bloom and golden-rod made gay, 
Flows down in silent gladness to the sea, 
Like a pure spirit to its great reward ! 

Nor lack I friends, long-tried and near and dear, 
Whose love is round me like this atmosphere, 
Warm, soft, and golden. For such gifts to me 
What shall I render, O my God, to thee ? 
Let me not dwell upon my lighter share 
Of pain and ill that human life must bear ; 
Save me from selfish pining; let my heart, 
Drawn from itself in sympathy, forget 
The bitter longings of a vain regret, 
The anguish of its own peculiar smart. 
Remembering others, as I have to-day, 
In their great sorrows, let me live alwa.y 
Not for myself alone, but have a part, 
Such as a frail and erring spirit may, 
In love which is of Thee, and which indeed Thou 
art! 



MOLOCH IN STATE STREI.T. 

Tin: moon has set : while yet the daw i 

Breaks cold and gray. 
Between the midnight and the morn 

Bear off your prey ! 

On, swift and still ! — the conscious street 

Is panged and stirred ; 
Tread light ! — that fall of serried feet 

The dead have beard ! 

The first drawn blood of Freedom's veins 

(lushed where ye tread ; 
Lo ! through the dusk the martyr- stains 

Blush darkly red ! 

Beneath the slowly waning stars 

\tiil w bitening day, 
What stern and awful presence bars 
That sacred way? 



THE PEACE OF EUROPE. —WORDSWORTH. 



121 



What faces frown upon ye, dark 
With shame and pain V 
Come these from Plymouth's Pilgrim bark 
Is that young Vane ? 

Who, dimly beckoning, speed ye on 

With mocking cheer V 
Lo ! spectral Andros, Hutchinson, 

And Gage are here ! 

For ready mart or favoring blast 

Through Moloch's tire 
Flesh of his flesh, unsparing, passed 

The Tyrian sire. 

Ye make that ancient sacrifice 

Of Man to Gain, 
Your traffic thrives, where Freedom dies. 

Beneath the chain. 

Ye sow to-day, your harvest, scorn 

And hate, is near ; 
How think ye freemen, mountain-born, 

The tale will hear ? 

Thank God ! our mother State can yet 

Her fame retrieve ; 
To you and to your children let 

The scandal cleave. 

Chain Hall and Pulpit, Court and Press, 

Make gods of gold ; 
Let honor, truth, and manliness 

Like wares be sold. 

Your hoards are great, your walls are strong 

But God is just ; 
The gilded chambers built by Wrong 

Invite the rust. 

What ! know ye not the gains of Crime 

Are dust and dross ; 
Its ventures on the waves of time 

Foredoomed to loss ! 

And still the Pilgrim State remains 

What she hath been ; 
Her inland hills, her seaward plains, 

Still nurture men ! 

Nor wholly lost the fallen mart, — 

Her olden blood 
Through many a free and generous heart 

Still pours its flood. 

That brave old blood, quick-flowing yet, 

Shall know no check, 
Till a free people's foot is set 

On Slavery's neck 

Even now, the peal of bell and gun, 

And hills aflame, 
Tell of the first great triumph won 

In Freedom's name. 65 

The long night dies : the welcome gray 

Of dawn we see ; 
Speed up the heavens thy perfect day, 

God of the free ! 

1851. 



THE PEACE OF EUROPE. 
L852. 

" Great peace in Europe ! Order reigns 
From Tiber's hills to Danube's plains ! " 
So say her kings and priests ; so say 
The lynig prophets of our day. 



Go lay to earth a listening ear : 

The tramp of measured marches hear, — 

oiling of the cannon's wheel, 
The shotted musket's murderous peal, 
The night alarm, the sentry's call, 
The quick-ean 'I spy in hut and ball ! 
From Pillar sea and tropii 
The dying-groans of exiled menj 
The bolted cell, the galley's chains, 
The scaffold smoking with its stains ! 
Order, — the hush of brooding slaves ! 
Peace, — in the dungeon-vaults and graves ! 

Fisher ! of the world-wide net, 

With meshes in all waters set, 

Whose fabled keys of heaven and hell 

Bolt hard the patriot's prison-cell, 

And open wide the banquet-hall, 

Where kings and priests hold carnival ! 

Weak vassal tricked in royal guise, 

Boy Kaiser with thy lip of lies ; 

Base gambler for Napoleou's crown, 

Barnacle on his dead renown ! 

Thou, Bourbon Neapolitan, 

Crowned scandal, loathed of God and man ; 

And thou, fell Spider of the North ! 

Stretching thy giant feelers forth, 

Within whose web the freedom dies 

Of nations eaten up like flies ! 

Speak, Prince and Kaiser, Priest and Czar ! 

If this be Peace, pray what is War ? 

White Angel of the Lord ! unmeet 

That soil accursed for thy pure feet. 

Never in Slavery's desert flows 

The fountain of thy charmed repose ; 

No tyrant's hand thy chaplet weaves 

Of lilies and of olive-leaves ; 

Not with the wicked shalt thou dwell, 

Thus saith the Eternal Oracle ; 

Thy home is with the pure aud free ! 

Stern herald of thy better day, 

Before thee, to prepare thy way, 

The Baptist Shade of Liberty, 

Gray, scarred and hairy-robed, must press 

With bleeding feet the wilderness ! 

O that its voice might pierce the ear 

Of princes, trembling while they hear 

A cry as of the Hebrew seer : 

Repent ! God's kingdom draweth near ! 



WORDSWORTH. 

WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF HIS MEMOIRS. 

Dear friends, who read the world aright, 
And in its common forms discern 

A beauty and a harmony 
The many never learn ! 

Kindred in soul of him who found 
In simple flower and leaf and stone 

The impulse of the sweetest lays , 
Our Saxon tongue has known, — 

Accept this record of a life 

As sweet and pure, as calm and good, 
As a long day of blandest June 

In green field and in wood. 

How welcome to our ears, long pained 
By strife of sect and party noise, 

The brook-like murmur of his song 
Of nature's simple joys ! 



122 



IN PEACE.— BENEDICITE. 



The viol t h\ it-- tnossj stone, 
The primi ose bj I be i iver's brim, 

And chance sown daffodil, have found 
Immortal Life through him. 

The Bunrise on his breezy la] 
The rosy tints his sunset brought, 

World -seen, are gladdening all the vales 
And mountain-peaks of thought. 

Art builds on sand ; the works of pride 
And human passion change and fall ; 

But that which shares the life of God 
With him surviveth all. 



TO . 

LINES WRITTEN AFTEH A SUMMER DAY'S 
EXCURSION. 

Fair Nature's priestesses ! to whom, 
In hieroglyph oMmd and bloom, 

Her mysteries are toid ; 
Who, wise in lore of wood and mead, 
The seasons' pictured scrolls can read, 

In lessons manifold ! 

Thanks for the courtesy, and gay 
Good-humor, which on Washing Day 

Our ill-timed visit bore ; 
Thanks for your graceful oars, which broke 
The morning dreams of Artichoke, 

Along his wooded shore ! 

Varied as varying Nature's ways, 
Sprites of the river, woodland fays, 

Or mountain nymphs, ye seem; 
Free-limbed Dianas on the green, 
Loch Katrine's Ellen, or Undine, 

Upon your favorite stream. 

The forms of which the poets told* 
The fair benignities of old, 

Were doubtless such as you ; 
What more than Artichoke the rill 
Of Helicon ? Than Pipe-stave hill 

Arcadia's mountain-view ? 

No sweeter bowers the bee delayed, 
In wild Hymettus' scented shade, 

Than those you dwell among; 
Snow-flowered azalias, intertwined 
With roses, over banks inclined 

With trembling harebells hung ! 

A charmed life unknown to death, 
Immortal freshness Nature hath ; 

Her fabled fount and glen 
Are now and here : Dodona's shrine 
iStill murmurs in the wind-swept pine, — 

All is that e'er hath been. 

The Beauty which old (.recce or Rome 
Sung, painted, wrought, lies close at home ; 

We need but eye and ear 
In all our daily walks to trace 
The outlines of incarnate grace, 

The hymns of gods to hear ! 



IN PEACE. 

A TRACE of moonlight on a quiet lake, 

Whose small waves on a silver-sanded shore 
Whisper of peace, and with the low winds make 
Such harmonies as keep the woods awake, 



And listening all night long for their swept sake; 

A green waved slope of meadow, hovered o'er 
By angel-troops of lilies, swaying light 
On viewless stems, with folded wings of white ; 
A slumberous stretch of mountain-land, Far set n 
Where the low westering day, with gold and green, 
Purple and amber, softly blended, Ids 
The wooded vales, and melts among the hills ; 
A vine Fringed river, winding to its rest 

On the calm bosom of a stormless si a, 
Bearing alike upon its placid breast, 
With earthly flowers and heavenly stars im 
1 ressed. 

The lines of time and of < toinit \ ; 
Such are lb i pictun s which the thought of thee, 
O friend, awakensth,- charming the keen pain 

Of thy di parture, and our sen,, of loss 
Requiting with the fulness oi thy gain* 

Lo ! on the quiet grave thy life-borne cross, 
Dropped only at its side, methinks doth shine, 
Of thy beatitude the radiant sign ! 

No sob - of grief, no wild lament be there, 

To break the Sabbath of the holy air ; 
But, in their stead, the silent-breathing prayer 
Of hearts still waiting for a rest like thine. 
spirit redeemed ! Forgive us, if henceforth, 
With sweet and pure similitudes of earth, 

We keep thy pleasant memory freshly green, 
Of love's inheritance a priceless part, 

Which Fancy's self, in reverent awe, is seen 
To paint, forgetful of the tricks of art, 

With pencil dipped alone in colors of the heart. 



BENEDICITE. 

God's love and peace bo with thee, where 
Soe'er this soft autumnal air 
Lifts the dark tresses of thy hair ! 

Whether through city casements comes 
Its kiss to thee, in crowded rooms. 
Or, out among the woodland blooms, 

It freshens o'er thy thoughtful face, 
Imparting, in its glad embrace, 
Beauty to beauty, grace to grace ! 

Fair Nature's book together read, 

The old wood-paths that knew our tread, 

The maple shadows overhead, — 

The hills we climbed, the river seen 
By gleams along its deep ravine, — 
All keep thy memory fresh and green. 

Where'er I look, where'er I stray, 
Thy thought goes with me on my way, 
And hence the prayer I breathe to-day ; 

O'er lapse of time and change of scene, 

The weary waste which lies between 
Thyself and me, my heart I lean. 

Thou lack'st not Friendship's spell-word, nor 
The half-unconscious power to draw 
All hearts to thine by Love's sweet law. 

With these good gifts of God is cast 
Thy lot, and many a charm thou hast 
To hold the blessed angels fast. 

If, then, a fervent wish for thee 

The gracious heavens will heed from me, 

What should, dear heart, its burden be ? 

The sighing of a shaken reed, — 

\\ bat can I mere than meekly plead 

The greatness of our common need ? 



PICTURES. — DERNE. 



123 



God's love, — unchanging, pure, and true, 
The Paraclete white-shining through 
His peace, — the fall of Hermon's new ! 

With such a prayer, on this sweet day, 
As thou mayst hear and I may Baj , 
I greet thee, dearest, far away ! 



PICTURES. 



Ligiit, warmth, and sprouting greenness, and 
o'er all 
Blue, stainless, steel-bright ether, raining down 
Tranquillity upon the deep-hushed town, 
The freshening meadows, and the hillsides 
1 jvown ; 
Voice of the west-wind from the hills of 
pine. 
And the brimmed river from its distant fall, 
Low hum of bees, and joyous interlude 
Of bird-songs in the streamlet-skirting wood, — 
Heralds and prophecies of sound and sight, 
Blessed forerunners of the warmth and light, 
Attendant angels to the house of prayer, 

With reverent footsteps keeping pace with 
mine, — - 
Once more, through God's great love, with you I 

share 
A morn of resurrection sweet and fair 

As that which saw, of old, in Palestine, 
Immortal Love uprising in fresh bloom 
Prom the dark night and winter of the tomb ! 

hth mo., 2d, 1852. 



White with its sun-bleached dust, the pathway 
winds 
Before me ; dust is on the shrunken grass, 
And on the trees beneath whose boughs I pass ; 
Frail screen against the Hunter of the sky, 
Who, glaring on me with his lidless eye, 

While mounting with his dog star high and 
higher 
Ambushed in light intolerable, unbinds 

The burnished quiver of his shafts of fire. 
Between me and the hot fields of his South 
A tremulous glow, as from a furnace-mouth, 
Glimmers and swims before my dazzled sight, 

As if the burning arrows of his ire 
Broke as they fell, and shattered into light ; 
Yet on my cheek I feel the western wind, 
And hear it telling to the orchard trees, 
And to the faint and flower-forsaken bees, 
Tales of fair meadows, green with constant 
streams, 
And mountains rising blue and cool behind, 

Where in moist dells the purple orchis gleams, 
And Btarred with white the virgin's bower is 

twined. 
Si i the o'erwearied pilgrim, as he fares 

Along life's summer waste, at times is fanned, 
Even at noontide, by the cool, sweet airs 
Of a serener and a holier land, 
Fresh as the morn, and as the dew-fall bland. 
Breath of the blessed Heaven for which we 

pray, 
Blow from the eternal hills ! — make glad our 
earthly way ! 

Sth mo., 1852. 



DERNE. 68 

Night on the city of the Moor ! 

On mosque and tomb, and white-walled shore, 

On sea-waves, to whose ceaseless knock 

The narrow harbor-gates unlock, 

On corsair's galley, earack tall, 

And plundered Christian caraval! 

The sounds of Moslem life are still ; 

No mule-bell tinkles down the hill ; 

Stretched m the broad court of the khan, 

The dusty Bornou caravan 

Lies heaped in slumber, beast and man • 

The Sheik is dreaming in his tent, 

His noisy Arab tongue o'erspent ; 

The kiosk's glimmering lights are gone, 

The merchant with his wares withdrawn ; 

Rough pillowed on some pirate breast, 

The dancing-girl has sunk to rot ; 

And, save where measured footsteps fall 

Along the Bashaw's guarded wall, 

Or wdiere, like some bad dream, the Jew 

Creeps stealthily his quarter through, 

Or counts with fear his goldi n I caps, 

The City of the Corsair sleeps ! 

But where yon prison long and low- 
Stands black against the pale star-glow, 

< 'ha tod by the ceaseless wash of waves, 
There watch and pine the ( hristian slaves ;■=- 
Rough-bearded men, whose far-off wives 
Wear out with grief their lonely lives ; 

And youth, still flashing from his eyes 

The clear blue of New England skies, 

A treasured lock oi whose soft hair 

Now wakes some sorrowing mother's prayer; 

Or, worn upon some maiden bri 

Stirs with the loving heart's unrest ! 

A bitter cup each life must drain, 
The groaning earth is cursed with pain, 
And, like the scroll the angel bore 
The shuddering Hebrew seer before, 

< >'erwrit alike, without, within, 
With all the woes which follow sin ; 
But, bitterest of the ills beneath 
Whose load man totters down to death, 
Is that which plucks the regal crown 
Of Freedom from'his forehead down, 
And snatches from his powerless hand 
The sceptred sign of self-command, 
Effacing with the chain and rod 

The image and the seal of God ; 
Till from his nature, day by day, 
The manly virtues fall away, 
And leave him naked, blind and mute, 
The godlike merging in the brute ! 

Why mourn the quiet ones who die 
Beneath affection's tender eye, 
Unto their household and their kin 
Like ripened corn-sheaves gathered in ? 
O weeper, from that tranquil sod, 
That holy harvest-home of God, 
Turn to the quick and suffering, — shed 
Thy tears upon the living dead ! 
Thank God above thy dear ones' graves, 
They sleep with Him,— they are not slaves. 

What dark mass, down the mountain-sides 
Swift-pouring, like a stream divides '? — 
A long, loose, straggling caravan, 
Camel and horse and armed man. 
The moon's low crescent, glimmering o'er 
Its grave of waters to the shore, 
Lights up that mountain cavalcade, 
And glints from gun and spear and blade 
Near and more near ! — now o'er them falls 
The shadow of the city walls. 



124 



A.STEEA — INVOCATION— THE CROSS. 



Hark bo the sentrj 'b challenge, drowned 
In the fierce trumpet's charging sound !— 
The rush of men, the musket's peal, 
The short, sharp clang of meeting steel! 

Vain, Moslem, vain I In lifehlood poured 
So Ereely od thy foeman's sword! 
Nui bo the su irt nor to the strong 
The battle s of the right belong ; 
For he who strikes for Freedom wears 
The armor of the captive's prayers, 
And Nature proffers to his cause 
The strength of her eternal laws; 
While he whose arm essays to bind 
Ami herd with common brutes his kind 
Strives evermore at fearful odds 
With Nature and the jealous gods, 
And dares the dread recoil which late 
Or soon their right shall vindicate. 

'T is done, — the horned crescent falls ! 
The star-flag flouts the broken walls ! 
,lo\ bo the captive husband ! joy 
To thy sick heart, () brown-locked boy ! 
In sullen wrath the conquered Moor 
Wide open flings your dungeon-door, 
And haves ye tree from Cell and chain. 
The owners of yourselves again. 
1 )ark as his allies desert-born, 
Soiled with the battle's stain, and worn 
Wit h the long marches of his band 
Through hottest wastes of rock and sand,- 
Scorched by the sun and furnace-breath 
Of the red desert's wind of death, 
With welcome words and grasping hands, 
The victor and deliverer stands! 

The tale is one of distant skies ; 

The dust of half a century lies 

Upon it ; yet its hero's name 

Still lingers on the lips of Fame. 

Men speak the praise of him who gave 

Deliverance to the Moorman's slave, 

Yet dare to loam I with shame and crime 

The heroes of our land and time,— 

The self -forgetful ones, who stake 

Home, name, and lite tor Freedom's sake. 

( hi 1 mend his heart who cannot feel 

The impulse of a holy zeal, 

Ami sees not, with his sordid eyes, 

The beauty of self-sacrifice ! 

Though in the sacred place he stands, 

Uplifting consecrated hands, 

Unworthy arc his lips to tell 

Of Jesus' martyr-miracle, 

Or name aright that dread embrace 

Of suffering for a fallen race ! 



ASTR/EA. 

" .love means to settle 
Astne:i in her seal again, 
And let down from his golden chain 
An age of better metal." 

Ben Jonson, 1615. 

() PI IET rare and old ! 

Thy words are prophecies : 
Forward the age of gold. 

The new Sat urnian lies. 

The arm i rsal prayer 

And I a t in vain ; 

Rise, brol hers ! and prepare 
The way for Saturn's reign. 



Ferish shall all which takes 
From labor's board and can ; 

Perish shall all which makes 
A spaniel of the man ! 

Free from its bonds the mind, 

The body from the rod ; 

Broken all chains that bind 

The image of our God, 

Just men no longer pine 
Behind their prison-bars ; 

Through the rent dungeon shine 
The free sun and the stars. 

Earth own, at last, untrod, 
By sect, or caste, or clan, 

The fatherhood of God, 
The brotherhood of man ! 

Fraud fail, craft perish, forth 

The money changers driven, 
And God's will dune on earth, 
As now in heaven ! 



INVOCATION. 

Through thy clear spaces, Lord, of old, 
Formless and void the dead earth rolled ; 
Deaf to thy heaven's sweet music, blind 
To the great lights which o'er it shined ; 
No sound, no ray, no warmth, no breath, — ■ 
A dumb despair, a wandering death. 

To that dark, weltering horror came 
Thy spirit, like a subtle flame, — 
A breath of life electrical, 
Awakening and transforming all, 
Till beat and thrilled in every part 
The pulses of a living heart. 

Then knew their bounds the land and sea ; 
Then smiled the bloom of mead and tree ; 
From flower to moth, from beast to man, 
The quick creative impulse ran ; 
And earth, with life from thee renewed, 
Was in thy holy eyesight good. 

As lost and void, as dark and cold 
And formless as that earth of old, — ■ 
A wandering waste of storm and night. 
Midst spheres of song and realms of light,— 
A blot upon thy holy sky, 
Untouched, unwarni d of thee, am I. 

O thou who movest on the deep 
Of spirits, wake my own from sleep ! 
Its darkness melt, its coldness warm, 
The lost restore, the ill transform. 
That flower and fruit henceforth may be 
Its grateful offering, worthy thee. 



THE CROSS. 

ON THE DEATH OF RICHAKD DILLINGHAM, IN 
THE NASHVILLE PENITENTIARY. 

"The cross, if rightly borne, shall be 
No burden, but support to thee" ; * 
So, moved of old time for our sake, 
The holy monk of Kempen spake. 

* Thomas a Kempis, Imit. Christ. 



EVA.— FREDRIKA BREMER— APRIL. 



125 



Thou brave and true one ! upon whom 
Was laid the cross of martj rdom, 
How didst thou, in th\ generous youth, 
Bear witness to this blessed truth! 

Thy 'toss of suffering and of shame 
\ si ,if w n [in I 13 hands became, 
In paths wh< re faith alone could see 
The Master's steps supporting thee. 

Thine was the seed-time ; < rod alone 

Beholds the end of what is sown ; 
Beyond our vision, weak and dinr, 
The harvest-time is hid with Him. 

Yet, unforgotten where it lies, 
That seed of generous sacrifice, 
Though seeming on the desert cast, 
Shall rise with bloom and fruit at last. 



EVA. 



Dry the tears for holy Eva, 
With the blessed angels leave her ; 
Of the form so soft and fair 
Give to earth the I 

For the golden locks of Eva 
Let the sunny south-land give her 
Flowery pillow of repose, — 
Orange-bloom and budding rose. 

In the better home of Eva 
Let the shining ones receive her, 
With the welcome-voiced psalm. 
Harp of gold and waving palm ! 

All is light and peace with Eva ; 
There the darkness cometh never ; 
Tears arc wiped, and fetters fall, 
And the Lord is all in all. 

Weep no more for happy Eva, 

Wrung and sin no more shall grieve her ; 
Care and pain and weariness 
Lost in love so measureless. 

Gentle Eva, loving Eva, 
Child confessor, true believer, 
Listener at the Master's knee, 
" Suffer such to come to me." 

O, for faith like thine, sweet Eva, 
Lighting all the solemn river, 
he blessings of the poor 
Wafting to the heavenly shore ! 



TO FREDRIKA BREMER." 

Seekes.s of the misty Norland, 
Daughter of the Vikings bold, 

Welcome to the sunny Vineland, 
Which thy fathers sought of old ! 

Soft as flow of Silja's waters, 

When the moon of summer shines, 

Strong as Winter from his mountains 
Roaring through the sleeted pines. 

Heart and ear, we long have listened 
To thy saga, rune, and song, 

As a household joy and presence 
We have known and loved thee long 



By the mansion's marble mantel, 
Round the log-walled cabin's hearth, 

Thy sweet thoughts and northern fancies 
Meet and mingle with our mirth. 

And o'er weary spirits keeping 

Sorrow's night-watch, long and chill, 

Shine they like thy sun of summer 
Over midnight vale and hill. 

We alone to thi e are strangers, 
Thou our friend and teacher art ; 

Come, and know us as we know thee; 
Let us meet thee heart to heart ! 

To our homes and household altars 
We, in turn, thy steps would lead, 

As thy loving hand has led us 
O'er the threshold of the Swede. 



APRIL. 

" The spring comes slowly up this way." 

Christabel. 

' Tis the noon of the spring-time, yet never a bird 

In ! he wind-shaken elm or the maple is heard ; 

For green meadow-grasses wide levels of snow. 

And blowing of drifts where the crocus should 
blow ; 

Where wind-flower and violet, amber and white, 

On south-sloping brooksides should smile in the 
light, 

O'er the cold winter-beds of their late-waking 
roots 

The frosty flake eddies, the ice-crystal shoots ; 

And, longing for light, under wind-driven heaps, 

Round the holes of the pine- wood the ground- 
laurel creeps, 

Unkissed of the sunshine, unbaptized of show- 
ers, 

With buds scarcely swelled, which should burst 
into flowers ! 

We wait for thy coming, sweet wind of the 
south ! 

For the touch of thy light wings, the kiss of thy 
mouth ; 

For the yearly evangel thou bearest from God, 

Resurrection and life to the graves of the sod ! 

Up our long river-valley, for days, have not 
ceased 

The wail and the shriek of the bitter north- 
east, — 

Raw and chill, as if winnowed through ices and 
snow. 

All the way from the land of the wild Esqui- 
mau, — 

Until all our dreams of the land of the blest, 

Like that red hunter's, turn to the sunny south- 
west. 

O soul of the spring-time, its light and its 
breath, 

Bring warmth to this coldness, bring life to thk 
death ; 

Renew the great miracle ; let us behold 

The .-tone from the mouth of the sepulchre 
rolled, 

And Nature, like Lazarus, rise, as of old ! 

Let our faith, which in darkness and coldness 

has lain, 
Revive with the warmth and the brightness 
again, 

And in blooming of flower and budding of tree 

The symbols and types oi our destiny see; 

The life of the spring-time, the life of the whole, 
And, as sun to the sleeping earth, love to the 
soul ! 



L26 



STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.— A SABBATH SCENE. 



STANZAS FOR THE TIMES. 
L«50. 

THE <vil davs have come, — the poor 

Arc made a prej ; 
Bar u | > t le hospitable dour. 

ghts, point no more 

The wandei ei 'a way. 

For l'it > ii'\\ is crime ; the chain 

Which binds our States 
Is melted at her hearth in twain, 
[s rusted l>\ her tears' suit rain: 

Close up her gates. 

Our Union, like a -lacier stirred 

I !\ \ oice below . 
Or bell of kine, or wing of bird, 
A beggar's crust, a kindly word 

.May overl lirow ! 

Poor, \\ hispering t remblers !— yet we boast 

( > 1 1 1 - blood and □ 
Bursting its century bolted frost, 

cay cairn on the Northman's coast 

( \ ies out for shame ! 

for the ope i firmament, 

'The prairie ti< e, 
The desert hillside, cavern-rent, 
The Pawnee's lodge, the Arab's tent, 

The Bushman's tree ! 

Than web of Persian loom most rare, 

( >r soft divan, 
Bi I e; the rough rock, bleak and bare, 
Or hollow tree, which man may share 

With Buffering man. 

1 hear a voice : " Thus saith the Law, 

Let Love be dumb ; 
Clasping her liberal hands in awe, 
Let sweet-lipped Charity withdraw 

From hearth and home."' 

I hear another voice: "The poor 

An d ; 

Turn not the outcast from thy door, 
Nor give to bonds and wrong once more 

Whom Go d " 

Dear Lord! between thai law and thee. 

No cl a ins ; 

Yet m man's di cree, 

Though spurning its rewards, is he 
Who bears its pains. 

Not mine Sedition's trumpet-blast 

And threa bening wor I ; 
i he lesson ol the I'ast. 
That firm endurance wins at last 

More than i he sword 

. i thou 

Lend strength to weakness, teach us how 
The sli oJ God look through 

This night of wrong ! 



A SABBATH SCENE. 

Sc \'.' B had i he solemn S ibbath-bell 
, . ering in bh 

Walked stately through his people, 



When down I lie ummer-shaded street 

A wasted female figure, 
With dusky brow and naked feet, 

Came i ashing h Lid and eager. 

She saw the white spire through the trees, 
She h. ,ii .1 hymn swelling ; 

() pitying Christ ! a refuge ■ 
That poor one in thy dwelling! 

Like a scared fawn before the hounds, 

Right- up the aisle she glided, 
While close behind her, whip in hand, 

A lank-haired hunt, r strided. 

She raised a keen and bitter cry, 
To Heaven and Earl h appealing ; — 

Were manhood's generous pulses dead? 
Had woman's heart no feeling ? 

A score of stout hands rose between 

The hunter and the Hying : 
Age clenched his staff, and maiden eyes 

Flashed tearful, yet defying. 

" Who dares profane this house and day? " 

( Vied out the angrj pastor. 
" Why, bless your soul, the wench 's a slave, 

And I 'm her lord and master! 

'• I Ve law and gospel on my side. 
And who shall dare refuse me ? " 

Down came the parson, bowing low, 
•' My good sir, pray excuse me ! 

" Of course I know your right divine 
To own and work and whip her; 

Quick, deacon, throw that Polyglott 
Before the wench, and trip her ! " 

Plump dropped the holy tome, and o'er 

Its sacred pages stumbling, 
Bound hand and foot, a slave once more, 

The hapless wretch lay trembling. 

I saw the parson tie the knots. 

The while his flock addressing. 
The Scriptural claims of slavery 

With text on text impressing. 

" Although," said he, "on Sabbath day 

All secular occupations 
\r deadlj sins, we must fulfil 

Our moral obligations : 

" And this commends itself as one 

To every conscience tender ; 
As Paul sent back Onesimus, 

My Christian friends, we send her ! " 

Shriek rose on shriek, — the Sabbath air 

Her wild cries tore asunder; 
[listened, with hushed breath, to hear 

God answering with his thru 

All still! — the very altar'- cloth 
Had smothered down her shrieking, 

And, dumb, she turned from face to face, 
For human pity seeking ! 

1 saw I along the aisle, 

Her shackles harshly clanking; 
I heard the ('arson, over all. 

The Lord devoutly thanking ! 

My brain took fire : " Is this," I cried. 
"The end of prayer ami preaching? 

own with pulpit, down with priest, 
And give us Nature's teaching ! 



REMEMBRANCE. 



127 




" I saw her dragged along the aisle." 



"Foul shame and scorn be on ye all 

Who turn the good to evil, 
And steal the Bible from the Lord, 

To give it to the Devil ! 

' ' Than garbled text or parchment law 

I own a statute higher ; 
And God is true, though every book 

And every man 's a Ear ! " 

Just then I felt the deacon's hand 
In wrath my coat-tail seize on ; 

I heard the priest cry, "Infidel ! " 
The lawyer mutter, " Treason ! " 

I started up, — where now were church, 

Slave, master, priest, and people ? 
I Only heard the supper-bell, 

Instead of clanging steaple. 

But. on the open window's sill. 

O'er which the white blooms drifted, 

The pages of a good old Book 
The wind of summer lifted, 

And flower and vine, like angel wings 

Around the Holy Mother, 
Waved softly there, as if God's truth 

And Mercy kissed each other. 

And freely from the cherry-bough 
Above the casement swinging, 

With gulden bosom to the sun, 
The oriole was singing. 

As bird and flower made plain of old 

The lesson of the Teacher, 
So now I heartl the written Word 

Interpreted by Nature ! 



For to my ear methought the breeze 
Bore Freedom's blessed word on ; 

Thus saith the Lord : Break every yoke, 
Undo the heavy burden ! 



REMEMBRANCE. 

WITH COPIES OF THE AUTHOR'S WRITINGS. 

Friend of mine ! whose lot was cast 
With me in the distant past, — 
Where, like shadows flitting fast, 

Fact and fancy, thought and theme, 
Word and work, begin to seem 
Like a half -remembered dream ! 

Touched by change have all things been, 
Yet I think of thee as when 
We had speech of lip and pen. 

For the calm thy kindness lent 
To a path of discontent, 
Rough with trial and dissent ; 

Gentle words where such were few, 
Softening blame where blame was true, 
Praising where small praise was due ; 

For a waking dream made good, 

For an ideal understood, 

For thy Christian womanhood ; 

For thy marvellous gift to cull 
From our common life and dull 
Whatsoe 'er is beautiful ; 



128 



i in. rnoi: voter on election day.— trust.— Kathleen. 



Thoughts and lam-its, Hy Ida's bees 
Drop] less; true heart' s-ease 

( )]' congenial bj mpathies ; — 

Still for thee i 1 own my debl ; 
« it h ber eyelids wet. 
Pain would I hank bhee even yet ! 

A i,,l as "no wlui scatters flowers 
Where the Queen of May's sweet, hours 
Sits, o'ertwined with blossomed bowers, 

In superfluous zeal bestowing 
Gifts .ire overflowing, 

So 1 pay the debt 1 'm owing-. 

To thy full thoughts, gay or sad, 
Sunny-hued or sober clad, 
Something of my own I add ; 

W'rll assured that thou wilt take 
Even the offering which 1 make 

Kindly lor tin- giver's sake. 



THE POOR VOTER ON ELECTION DAY. 

Tim: proudest now is hut my peer, 

The highest not more high ; 
To-day, of all the weary year, 

A king of men am 1. 
To-day, alike are great ami small, 

The nameless and tin- known ; 
My palace is tin- people's hall, 

The ballot-box my throne ! 

Who serves to-day upon the list 

Beside the served shall stand ; 
Alike the brown ami wrinkled fist, 

The gloved anil dainty hand ! 
The rich is level with the pom-. 

The weak is strong to-day ; 
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more 

Than homespun frock of gray. 

To-day let pomp ami vain pretence 

My stubborn right abide; 
1 gel .-i 1 1 .in man's common sense 

Against t be pedant's pride. 
To-d ■ I i iple manhood try 

The st old and land ; 

Th.- wide world has not wealth to buy 

Tin- power in my right hand ! 

While there 's a grief to seek redress, 

Or hid mce to adjust, 
Where weighs our living manhood less 

Than Mammon's vilest dust, — 
Whili righl t o need my vote, 

A wrong to sweep away. 
Up ! el mted knee ami ragged coat ! 

A man 's a mat 



TRUST. 

Tun same old baffling questions ! mv friend, 
I cannot an I u I ain I semi 

My soul into the dark, v. lure never burn 

of Bcience, nor the natural light 
Of E I cannot learn 

mkI solemn gneanings, nor discern 

Tie awful secrets of the eyes which turn 

igb I he day and night 

I '• i b deman 

iig the riddles of the dread unknow 



kike the calm Sphinxes, with their eyes of stone, 
Questioning the centuries from their veils of 
Band ! 

I have no answer for myself or thoe, 

Save thai I Learned beside my mother's knee ; 

" All is ol < hid t hat, is, and is to lie ; 

Ami (hid is good." Let this suffice us still, 
Resting in childlike trust upon his will 

Who moves to his great ends unthwartcd by the 
ill. 



KATHLEEN. 58 

O NOEAH, lay your basket down, 

And rest your weary hand, 
And conic and hear me sing a song 

Of our old Ireland. 

There was a lord of Galaway, 

A mighty lord was he ; 
And he did wed a second wife, 

A maid of low degree. 

But he was old, and she was young, 
■ And so, in evil spite, 
She baked the black bread for his kin, 
And fed her own with white. 

She whipped the maids and starved the kern, 

And drove away the poor ; 
" Ah, woe is me ! " the old lord said, 

" 1 rue my bargain sore ! " 

This lord he had a daughter fair, 

Beloved of old and young, 
And nightly round the shealiug-fires 

Of her the gleeman sung. 

"As sweet and good is young Kathleen 

As Eve before her fall " ; 
So sang the harper at the fair, 

So harped he in the hall. 

" O come to me, my daughter dear ! 

Come sit upon my knee, 
For looking in your face, Kathleen, 

Your mother's own I see ! " 

He smoothed and smoothed her hair away, 

He kissed her forehead fair ; 
"It is my darling Mary's brow, 

It is my darling's hair ! " 

O, then spake up the angry dame, 

" (Jet up, get up," quoth she, 
"I'll sell ye over li eland, 

1 '11 sell ye o'er the sea ! " 

She clipped her glossy hair away, 
That none her rank might know, 

She took away her gown of silk, 
And gave her one of tow, 

Ami sent her down to Limerick town, 

Ami to a seaman sold 
This daughter of an Irish lord 

For ten good pounds in gold. 

Tlie lord In- smote upon his breast, 

And ton- his beard so graj ; 
Hut he was old, and she was \ onng, 

And so sin- had lei way. 

t same night the Banshee howled 
To fright the evil dame, 

And fairy folks, who lmed Kathleen, 
With funeral torches came. 



KOSSUTH.— TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTEE. 



129 



She watched them glancing through the trees, 

And glimmering down i tie hill; 
They crept before the dead-vault door, 

And there they all stood still ! 

"<;<t up, old man ! the wake-lighta shine ! " 
" Ye miii'th rm.;' witch," quoth he, 

" So I'm riil of your tongue, 1 little care 
If they shine for you or me. 

" O, whoso brings my daughter back, 

My gold and land shall have ' " 
O, then spake up his handsome page, 

" No gold nor land I i i 

" But give to me your daughter dear, 

Give sweet Kathleen to me, 
Be she on sea or be she on land, 

I '11 bring her back to thee." 

" My daughter is a lady born, 

And you of low degree. 
But she shall be your bride the day 

You bring her back to me." 

He sailed east, he sailed west, 

And far and long sailed he, 
Until he came to Boston town, 

Across the great salt sea. 

" O, have ye seen the young Kathleen, 

The flower of Ireland ? 
Ye '11 know her by her eyes so blue, 

And by her snow-white hand I " 

Out spake an ancient man, " I know 

The maiden whom ye mean ; 
I bought her of a Limerick man, 

And she is called Kathleen. 

" No skill hath she in household work, 

Her hands are soft and white, 
Vet, well by loving looks and ways 

She doth her cost requite." 

So up they walked through Boston town, 

Anil met a maiden fair, 
A little basket on her arm 

So snowy-white and bare. 

" Come hither, child, and say hast thou 

This young man ever seen '.' " 
They wept withhi each other's arms, 

The page and young Kathleen. 

"O give to me this darling child, 

And take my purse of gold." 
"Nay, not by me," her master said, 

" Shall sweet Kathleen be sold. 

•• We loved her in the place of one 

The Lord hath early ta'en ; 
But, since her heart 's in Ireland, 

We give her back again ! " 

O, for that same the saints in heaven 

For his poor soul shall pray, 
And Mary Mother wash with tears 

His heresies away. 

Sure now they dwell in Ireland, 

As you go up Claremore 
Ye '11 see their castle looking down 

The pleasant Galway shore. 

And the old lord's wife is dead and gone, 

And a happy man is he, 
For he sits beside his own Kathleen, 

With her darling on his knee. 



FIRST-DAY THOUGHTS. 

In calm and cool and sdence, once again 
1 find my old accustomed place among 
My brethren, where, perchance, no human 

tongue 
Shall utter woids ; where never hymn is sung, 
Nor deep-toned organ blown, nor censer swung, 

Nor dim light falling through the pictured pane ! 

There, syllabled by silence, let me hear 

The still small voice which reached the prophet's 
ear ; 

Read in my heart a still diviner law 

Than Israel's leader on his tallies saw ! 

There let me strive with each besetting sin. 
Recall my wandering fancies, and restrain 
The sore disquiet of a restless brain ; 
And, as the path of duty is made plain, 

.M.n grace be given that I may walk therein, 
Not like the hireling, for his selfish gain, 

With backward glances and reluctant tread, 

Making a merit of his coward dread, — 

But, cheerful, in the light around me thrown, 
Walking as one to pleasant service led; 
Doing God's will as if it were my own, 

Yet trusting not in mine, but in his strength 
alone ! 



KOSSUTH. » 9 

Ti'i'E of two mighty continents ! — combining 

The strength of Europe with the warmth and 
glow 
Of Asian song and prophecy, —the shining 

Of Orient splendors over Northern snow ! 
Who shall receive him ? Who, unblushing, speak 
Welcome to him, who, while he strove to break 
The Austrian yoke from Magyar necks, smote off 
At the same blow the fetters of the serf, — 
Rearing the altar of his Father-land 

On the firm base of freedom, and thereby 
Lifting to Heaven a patriot's stainless hand, 

Mocked not the God of Justice with a lie ! 
Who shall be Freedom's mouth-piece ? Who shall 

give 
Her welcoming cheer to the great fugitive ? 
Not he who, all her sacred trusts betraying, 

Is scourging back to slavery's hell of pain 
•The swarthy Kossuths of our land again ! 
Not he whose utterance now from lifw designed 
The bugle-march of Liberty to wind, 
And call her hosts beneath the breaking light,— 
The keen reveille of her morn of fight, — 

Is but the hoarse note of the bloodhound's bay- 
ing. 
The wolf's long howl behind the bondman's 

flight ! 
O for the tongue of him who lies at rest 

In Quincy's shade of patrimonial trees, — 
Lastf of the Puritan tribunes and the best, — 

To lend a voice to Freedom's sympathies, 
And hail the coming of the noblest guest 
The Old World's wrong has given the New World 
of the West ! 



TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER. 

AN EPISTLE NOT AFTER THE MANNER OP 
HORACE. 

Old friend, kind friend ! lightly down 
Drop time's snow-flakes on thy crown ! 
Never be thy shadow less, 
Never fail thy cheerfulness ; 



130 



TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER. 



Caxe, that kills the oat, may plough 
Wrinkles in t be miser's brow, 
i em 3 's spiteful 

I >] a ■.-. : i gol a down, 

Plagui (it ram, and 

Haunt, the rich man's door, and ride 
In the gilde I coach of pride; — 
Let the fiend pass ! -what can he 

to do with such as thee 5 
Seldom comes thai e\ il guest 
Where the conscience lies at rest, 
And brow n heall h and quiet wit 
Smiling on the threshold sit. 

I, the archiri unto win mi. 
In that smoked and dingy room, 
Where the district gave thee rule 
O'er its ragged winter school, 
Thou didst teach the mysti ri :s 
Of those weary A P> C's, — 
"Where, to lill the every pause 

< >l t h\ w ise and learned saws, 

Through the cracked and crazy wall 
( Same the cradle-rock and squall, 
And the goodman's voice, at strife 
With his shrill and tips) wife, — 
Luring us by stories old, 
With a comic unction told, 
More than by the eloquence 
Of terse birchen arguments 
(Doubtful gain, I fear), to look 
With complacence on a book! — 
Where the genial pedagogue 
Half forgot Ins rogues to flog, 

tale or apologue, 
Wise and merry in its drift 
As old Pined rus' twofold gift, 
Had the little rebels known it, 
Risum et prudentiam monet! 
I, — the man of middle years, 
In -whose sable locks appears 
Many a warning fleck of gray, — 
Looking back to that far day. 
And thy primal lessons, feel 
Grateful smiles my lips unseal, 
As, remembering thee, [ blend 
Olden teacher, present friend, 
Wis'- with antiquarian search, 
In the scrolls of State and Church : 
Named on history's title page, 
Parish-clerk and justice sage; 
For the ferule's wholesome awe 
Wielding now the sword of law. 

Threshing Tune's neglected sheaves, 
( lathering up t be scattered li aves 
Which the wrinkled siby] casl 
Care] ss from her as she passed, — 
Twofold citizen art thou, 
Freeman of the past and now. 
He who bore thy name of old 
Midway in the hpavens 'Hil hold 
< her ( ribeon moon and sun ; 
Thou hast bidden them backward run; 
Of to-day the present ray 
Flinging ovei yi stei da] ' 

Let the busy ones deride 
What I deem of right thy pride : 
Let the fooh I mills grind, 

L i'ik not forward nor behind, 
Shuffle in and w riggle out, 
Vc r with every breeze about, 
Turning like a windmill sail, 
Or a d ks his tail ; 

Let th t bee fast 

Tabernacled in the Past, 
Working out with eye and lip, 
Kiddles of old penmanship, 



I'at ii ait as Belzoni there 
Sorting out, with loving care, 
Mummies of dead questions stripped 

from their Si \enlold manuscript ! 

Dabbling, in their noisy way, 
In th to i lay. 

Lift le know they of thai vasl 

Solemn oc< an of t he past, 
On whose margin, wreck bi spread, 
Thou art walking with the dead, 
Quesl toning t he stranded \ ears, 

Waking smiles, by turns, and ti ars, 

As thou callest up again 

Shapes the dust has long o'erlain, — 

Fair haired woman, bearded man, 

( lavalier and Puritan ; 

In an age whose eager view 

Seeks but present things, and new, 

.Mad for party, sect and gold, 

Teaching reverence for the old. 

On that shore, with fowler's tact, 
Coolly bagging fact on 
Naught amiss to thee tan float, 
Ta le, or song, or anecdote ; 
Village gossip, centuries old, 
Scandals by our grandams told, 
What the pilgrim's table spread, 
Where he li\ ed, and u hum he wed, 
Long-drawn bill of wine and beer 
For his ordination chei r, 
Or the flip that wellnigh made 
< Had Lis funeral cavalcade ; 
Weary prose, and poet's lines, 
Flavored by their age, like wines 
Eulogistic of sumo quaint, 
Doubtful, puritanic saint; 
Lays that quickened husking jigs, 
Ji sts that shook grave periwigs, 
When the parson had his jokes 
And his glass, like other folks; 
Sermons that, for mortal hours, 
Taxed our lathers' vital powers, 
As the long nineteenthlies poured 
Downward from the sounding-board, 
And, for tire of Penti cost, 
Touched their beards December's fro; 

Time is hastening on, and we 
What our father's are shall be,— 
Shadow-shapes of memory ! 
Joined to that vast multitude 
Where the great are but the good, 
And the mind of strength shall prove 
Weaker than the heart of love ; 
Pride of gravbeard wisdom less 
Than the infant's guilelessness, 
And his song of sorrow more 
Than the crown the Psalmist wore! 
Who shall then, with pious zeal 
At our moss-<uowii thresholds kneel, 
From a stained and stony page 
Reading to a careless age. 
With a patient eye like thine, 
Prosing tale and limping line, 
.Names and words the hoary rime 
Of the Past has made sublime V 
Who shall work for us as well 
The antiquarian's miracle J 
Who to seeming life recall 
Teacher g ra i e and pupil small ? 
Who shall give to thee and me 
Freeholds in futurity . 

Well, whatever lot be mine, 

I ii in j and h ippy days be thine, 
Pre thy lull and honored a je 
Dates of time its latest page ! 
Squire for master, State for school, 



THE PANORAMA. 



131 



Wisely lenient, live and rule ; 
Over grown-up knave and rogue 
Play the watchful pedagogue ; 
Or, while pleasure smiles on duty. 
At the call of youth and beauty, 
Speak for them the spell of law 
Which shall bar and bolt withdraw. 
And the naming sword remove 
From the Paradise of Love. 
Still, with undimmed eyesight, pore 
Ancient tome and record o'er; 
Still thy week-day lyrics croon, 
Pitch in church the Sunday tune, 
Showing something, in thy part, 
Of. the old Puritanic art, 
Singer after Stemhold's heart ! 
In thy pew, for many a year, 
Homilies from Oldbug hear, 60 
Who to wit like that of South, 



And the Syrian's golden mouth, 

Doth the homely pathos add 

Which the pilgrim preachers had ; 

Breaking, like a child at play 

Gilded idols of the day, 

Cant of knave and pomp of fool 

Tossing with his ridicule, 

Yet, in earnest or in jest, 

Ever keeping truth abreast, 

And, when thou art called, at last, 

To thy townsmen of the past, 

Not as stranger shalt thou come ; 

Thou shalt find thyself at home ! 

With the little and the big, 

Woollsn cap and periwig, 

51 a dam in her high-laced ruff, 

Goody in her home-made stuff, — 

Wise and simple, rich and poor, 

Thou hast known them all before ! 



THE PANORAMA, 



AND OTHER POEMS. 



1856. 



THE PANORAMA. 

" A ! fredome is a nobill thing ! 
Fredorne mayse man to naif liking. 
Fredome all solace to man giffis ; 
He levys ;it ese that frely levys ! 
A nobil hart may haif nam- ese 
Na ellys nocht that may him plese 
Gyff Fredome failythe." 

Akchdeacon Baeboub. 

Through the long hall the shuttered windows 
shed 
A dubious light on every upturned head, — 
On locks like those of Absalom the fair, 
On the bald apex ringed with scanty hair, 
On blank indifference and on curious stare; 
On the pale Showman reading from his stage 
The hieroglyphics of that facial page ; 
Half sad, half scornful, listening to the bruit 
Uf restless cane-tap and impatient foot, 
And the shrill call, across the general din, 
" Roll up your curtain ! Let the show begin ! " 

At length a murmur like the winds that break 
Into green waves the prairie's grassy lake, 
Deepened and swelled to music clear and loud, 
And, as the west-wind lifts a summer cloud, 
The curtain rose, disclosing wide and far 
A green land stretching to the evening star, 
Fair rivers, skirted by primeval trees 
And flowers hummed over by the desert bees, 
Marked by tall bluffs whose slopes of greenness 

show 
Fantastic outcrops of the rock below, — 
The slow result of patient Nature's pains, 
And plastic fingering of her sun and rains, — 
Arch, tower, and gate, grotesquely windowed 

hall, 
And long escarpment of half-crumbled wall, 
Huger than those which, from steep hills of 

vine, 
Stare through their loopholes on the travelled 

Rhine ; 
Suggesting vaguely to the gazer's mind 
A fancy, idle as the prairie wind, 



Of the land's dwellers in an age unguessed, — 
The unsung Jotuns of the mystic West. 

Beyond, the prairie's sea-like swells surpass 
The Tartar's marvels of his Land of Grass, 
Vast as the sky against whose sunset shores 
Wave after wave the billowy greenness pours ; 
And, onward still, like islands in that main 
Loom the rough peaks of many a mountain 

chain, 
Whence east and west a thousand waters run 
From winter lingering under summer's sun. 
And, still beyond, long lines of foam and sand 
Tell where Pacific rolls his waves aland, 
From many a wide-lapped port and land-locked 

bay, 
Opening with thunderous pomp the world's high- 
way 
To Indian isles of spice, and marts of far Cathay. 

"Such," said the Showman, as the curtain fell, 
" Is the new Canaan of our Israel, — 
The land of promise to the swarming North, 
Which, hive-like, sends its annual surplus forth, 
To the poor Southron on his worn-out soil, 
Scathed by the curs?s of unnatural toil ; 
To Europe's exiles seeking home and rest. 
And the lank nomads of the wandering West, 
Who, asking neither, in their love of change 
And the free bison's amplitude of range, 
Rear the log-hut, for present shelter meant, 
Not future comfort, like an Arab's tent." 

Then spake a t-hrewd on-looker, " Sir," said he, 
"I like your p : cture, but I fain would see 
A sketch of what your promised land will be 
When, with electric nerve, and fiery-brained, 
With Nature's forces to its chariot chained, 
The future grasping, by the past obeyed, 
The twentieth century rounds a new decade." 

Then said the Showman, sadly: "He who 
grieves 
Over the scattering of the sibyl's leaves 
Unwisely mourns. Suffice it, that we know 
What needs must ripen from the seed we sow ; 



138 



THE PANORAMA. 



That present time is but the mould wherein 
We east the shapes of holiness and sin. 
A painful watcher of the passing hour, 
[tslusi of gold, its strife roi pla< i and power; 
[ts lack of manhood, lu>n. >r, reverence, truth, 

houghted age, andgenerous hearted youth ; 
Noryet unmindful of each better sign, — 

ow, Ear Lights, which on th' horizon shine, 
ometimes tremble on the rim 
Of clouded skies when day is closing dim, 
Flashing athwart the purple spears of rain 
The hope of sunshine on tin- hills again: — 
I need no prophet's word, nor shapes that, pass 
Like clouding shadows o'er a magic glass ; 

passifmless and cold, 
Doth the dread angel of the future hold 
Evil and good before as, with no voice 
( )r warning look to guide us in our choice ; 
With spectral hands outreachiiig through the 

gloom 
The shadowy contrasts of the coming doom. 
Transferred from these, it now remains to give 
The sun and shade of Kate's alternative." 

Then, with a burst of music, touching all 
The keys of thrifty life, — the millstream's fall, 
The engine's pant along its quivering rails. 
The' anvil's ring, the measured beat of flails, 
The sweep of scythes, the reaper's whistled tune, 
Answering the summons of the bells of noon, 
The woodman's hail along the river shores, 
The steamboat's signal, and the dip of oars, — 
Slowly the curtain rose from off a land 
Pair as God's garden. Broad on either hand 
The golden wheat-iields glimmered in the sun, 
And the tall maize its yellow tassels spun. 
Smooth highways set with hedge-rows living 

green, 
With steepled towns through shaded vistas seen, 
The school-house murmuring with its hive-like 

swarm, 
The brook-bank whitening in the grist-milPs 

storm, 
The painted farm-house shining through the 

leaves 
Of fruited orchards bending at its eaves, 
Where live again, around the Western hearth, 
The homely old time virtues of the North ; 
Where the blithe housewife rises with the day, 
And well-paid labor counts his task a play, 
And, grateful tokens of a Bible free, 
And tin' free Gospel of Humanity, 
Of diverse sects and differing names the shrines, 
One in their faith, whate'er their outward signs, 
Like varying strophes of the same sweet hymn 
Prom many a prairie's swell and liver's brim, 
A thousand church-spires sanctify the air 
Of the calm Sabbath, with their sign of prayer. 

Like sudden nightfall over bloom and green 
irtaiii dropped : and, momently, between 
Tie' clank of fetter and th ■ crack of thong, 
Half sob half laughter, music swept along, — 
A Strang.' retrain, whose idle words and low, 
Like drunken mouruei s, kept the time of woe ; 
As if tie- revellers a! a masquerade 
Heard in the dista lies played. 

Such music, dashing all his smiles with tears, 
The thoughtful voyager on Ponchartrain hears, 

through the noonday dusk of wooded 

sh .1 

The hi oars, 

With a wild pathos borrowed of Ins wrong 

n of his senseless song. 
" Look," said the Showman, sternly, as he rolled 
ipward ; " Pate's reverse behold ! " 

A village straggling in loose disarray 
Of vulgar newness, premature decay; 



A tavern, crazy with its whiskey brawls, 
With " Slaves at A//<-/i<>it / " garnishing its walls. 
Without, surrounded by a motley crowd, 
The shrewd-eyed salesman, garrulous and loud, 
A squire or colonel in his pride of place, 
Known at free tights, the caucus, and the race, 
Prompt to proclaim his honor without blot, 
And silence doubters with a ten pac< shot. 
Mingling the negro-driving bully's rant 

Witli pious phrase and de cratic cant, 

Yet never scrupling, with a filthy jest, 
To sell the infant From its mother's breast,. 
Break through all tics of wedlock, home, and kin, 
Yield shrinking girlhood up to graybeard sin ; 
Sell all the virtues with his human stock, 
The Christian graces on his auction-block, 
And coolly count on shrewdest bargains driven 
In hearts regenerate, and in souls forgiven ! 

Look once again ! The moving canvas shows 
A slave plantation's slovenly repose, 
Where, in rude cabins rotting midst their weeds, 
The human chattel eats, and s-lceps,' and breeds ; 
And, held a brute, in practice, as in law, 
Becomes in fact the thing he 's taken for. 
There, early summoned to the hemp and corn, 
The nursing mother leaves her child new-born ; 
There haggard sickness, weak and deathly faint, 
Crawls to his task, and fears to make complaint ; 
And sad-eyed Rachels, childless in decay, 
Weep for their lost ones soil and torn away ! 
Of ampler size the master's dwelling stands, 
In shabby keeping with his half -tilled lands, — 
The gates unhinged, the yard with weeds unclean, 
The cracked veranda with a tipsy lean. 
Without, loose-scattered like a wreck adrift, 
Signs of misrule and tokens of unthrift ; 
Within, profusion to discomfort joined, 
The listless body and the vacant mind ; 
The fear, the hate, the theft and falsehood, born 
In menial hearts of toil, and stripes, and scorn ! 
There, all the vices, which, like birds obscene, 
Batten on slavery loathsome and unclean, 
From the foul kitchen to the parlor rise, 
Pollute the nursery where the child-heir lies, 
Taint infant lips beyond all after cure, 
With the fell poison of a breast impure ; 
Touch boyhood's passions with the breath of 

flame, 
j From girlhood's instincts steal the blush of 

shame. 
S ) swells, from low to high, from weak to strong, 
The tragic chorus of the baleful wrong ; 
Guilty or guiltless, all within its range 
Feel the blind justice of its sure revenge. 

Still scenes like these the moving chart reveals. 
Up the long western steppes the blighting steals ; 
Down the Pacific slope the evil Fate 
Glides like a shadow to the Golden Gate : 
I F*om sea to sea the drear eclipse is thrown, 
I From sea to sea the Mauvaises Terres have 
grown, 
A belt of curses on the New World's zone ! 

The curtain fell. All drew a freer breath. 
As men are wont to do when mournful death 
Is covered from their sight. The Showman 

stood 
Witji drooping brow in sorrow's attitude 
One moment, then with sudden gesture shook 
Hi- loose hair back, and with the air and look 
Of one wdio felt, beyond the narrow stage 
And listening group, I he presence of the age, 
And heard the footsteps of the things to be, 
Pouri d out bis soul in earnest words and free. 

"O friends ! " he said, "in this poor trick of 
paint 
You see the semblance, incomplete and faint, 



THE PANORAMA. 



133 



Of the two-fronted Future, which, to-day, 
Stands dim and silent, waiting in your way. 
To-day, your servant, subject to your will ; 
To-morrow, master, or for good or ill. 
If the dark face of Slavery on you turns, 
If the mad curse its paper harrier spurns, 
If the world granary of the West is made 
The last foul market of the slaver's trade, 
Why rail at fate ? The mischief is your own. 
Why hate your neighbor ? Blame yourselves 
alone ! 

"Men of the North ! The South you charge 

with wrong 
Is weak and poor, while you are rich and strong. 
If questions, — 'idle and absurd as those 
The old-time monks and Paduan doctors chose, — 
Mere ghosts of questions, tariffs, and dead banks, 
And scarecrow pontiff's, never broke your ranks, 
Your thews united could, at once, roll back 
The jostled nation to its primal track. 
Nay, were you simply steadfast, manly, just, 
True to the faith your fathers left in trust, 
If stainless honor outweighed in your scale 
A codfish quintal or a factory bale, 
Full many a noble heart, (and such remain 
In all the South, like Lot m Siddim's plain, 
Who watch and wait, and from the wrong's 

control 
Keep white and pure their chastity of soul, ) 
Now sick to loathing of your weak complaints, 
Your tricks as sinners, and your prayers as saints, 
Would half-way meet the frankness of your tone, 
And feel their pulses beating with your own. 

"The North ! the South ! no geographic line 
Can fix the boundary or the point define, 
Since each with each so closely interblends, 
Where Slavery rises, and where Freedom ends. 
Beneath your rocks the roots, far-reaching, hide 
*Of the fell Upas on the Southern side ; 
The tree whose branches in your north-winds 

wave 
Droppe 1 its young blossoms on Mount Vernon's 

grave; 
The nursling growth of Monticello's crest 
Is now the glory of the free Northwest ; 
To the wise maxims of her olden school 
Virginia listened from thy lips, Rantoul; 
Seward's words of power, and Sumner's fresh re- 
nown, 
Flow from the pen that Jefferson laid down ! 
And when, at length, her years of madness o'er, 
Like the crowned grazer on Euphrates' shore, 
From her long lapse to savagery, her mouth 
Bitter with baneful herbage, turns the South, 
Resumes her old attire, and seeks to smooth 
Her unkempt tresses at the glass of truth, 
Her early faith shall find a tongue again, 
New Wythes and Pinckneys swell that old refrain, 
Her sons with yours renew the ancient pact, 
The myth of Union prove at last a fact ! 
Then, if one murmur mars the wide content, 
Some Northern lip will drawl the last dissent, 
Some Union-saving patriot of your own 
Lament to find his occupation gone. 

" Grant that the North is insulted, scorned, be- 
trayed, 
O'erreached in bargains with her neighbor made, 
When selfish thrift and party held the scales 
For peddling dicker, not for honest sales, — 
Whom shall we strike ? Who most deserves our 

blame ? 
The braggart Southron, open in his aim, 
Ar^| bold as wicked, crashing straight through all 
That bars his purpose, like a cannon-ball ? 
Or the mean traitor, breathing northern ah, 
With nasal speech and puritanic hair, 



Whose cant the loss of principle survives, 
As the mud-turtle e'en its head outlives ; 
Who, caught, chin-buried in some foul offence, 
Puts on a look of injured innocence, 
And consecrates his baseness to the cause 
Of constitution, union, and the laws ? 

" Praise to the place-man who can hold aloof 
His still unpurchased manhood, office-proof; 
Who on his round of duty walks erect, 
And leaves it only rich in self-respect, — 
As Moke maintained his virtue's lofty port 
In the Eighth Henry's base and bloody court. 
But, if exceptions here and there are found, 
Who tread thus safely on enchanted ground, 
The normal type, the fitting symbol still 
Of those who fatten at the public mill, 
Is the chained dog beside his master's door, 
Or Cikce's victim, feeding on all four ! 

" Give me the heroes who, at tuck of drum, 
Salute thy staff, immortal Quattleburr, ! 
Or they who, doubly armed with vote and gun, 
Following thy lead, illustrious Atchison, 
Their drunken franchise shift from scene to scene. 
As tile-beard Jourdan did his guillotine !— _ 
Rather than him who, born beneath our skies, 
To Slavery's hand its supplest tool supplies,— 
The party felon whose unblushing face 
Looks from the pillory of his bribe of place, 
And coolly makes a merit of disgrace, — 
Points to the footmarks of indignant scorn, 
Show's the deep scars of satire's tossing horn ; 
And passes to his credit side the sum 
Of all that makes a scoundrel's martyrdom ! 

" Bane of the North, its canker and its moth ! — 
These modern Esaus, bartering rights for broth ! 
Taxing our justice, with their double claim, 
As fools for pity, and as knaves for blame ; 
Who, urged by party, sect, or trade, within 
The fell embrace of Slavery's sphere of sin, 
Part at the outset with their moral sense, 
The watchful angel set for Truth's defence ; 
Confound all contrasts, good and ill ; reverse 
The poles of life, its blessing and its curse ; 
And lose thenceforth from their perverted sight 
The eternal difference 'twixt the wrong and right ; 
To them the Law is but the iron span 
That girds the ankles of imbruted man ; 
To them the Gospel has no higher aim 
Than simple sanction of the master's claim, 
Dragged in the slime of Slavery's loathsome trail, 
Like Chalier's Bible at his ass's tail ! 

" Such are the men who, with instinctive dread, 
Whenever Freedom lifts her drooping head, 
Make prophet-tripods of their office-stools, 
And scare the nurseries and the village schools 
With dire presage of ruin grim and great, 
A broken Union and a foundered State ! 
Such are the patriots, self-bound to the stake 
Of office, martyrs for their country's sake : 
Who fill themselves the hungry jaws of Fate, 
And by their loss of manhood save the State. 
In the wide gulf themselves like Curtius throw, 
And test the virtues of cohesive dough ; 
As tropic monkeys, linking heads and tails, 
Bridge o'er some torrent of Ecuador's vales ! 

"Such are the men who in your churches rave 
To swearing-point, at mention of the slave ! 
When some poor parson, haply unawares, 
Stammers of freedom in his timid prayers; 
Who, if some foot-sore negro through the town 
Steals northward, volunteer to hunt him down. 
Or, if some neighbor, flying from disease, 
Courts the mild balsam of the Southern breeze, 
I With hue and cry pursue him on his track, - 
I And write Free-Soiler on the poor man's back. 



134 



THE PANORAMA. 



Such axe the men who leave the pedler's cart, 
While faring South, to leai q I he drii er's art, 
Or, in e wi1 b pious aim 

The graceful Borrows of some languid dame, 
W'liii, from the wreck of In c bereavement, saves 
The doi of widowhood and slaves ! — 

Plianl mi I apt, thej Lose no chance to show 
To w bat ba se depl bs a] caD go ; 

Outdo the natives in their readiness 
To roaj I >r to mob a press ; 

Poise a tarred schoi the lyncher's rail, 

Or make a bonfire oJ their birthplace mail ! 

"So some poor wretch, whose lips no longer 
bear 
The sacred burden of his mother's prayer, 
Bj fear impelled, or lu.si ,,r gold enticed, 
Turns to the Crescent for the Cross of Christ, 
And, over-acting in superfluous zeal, 
Crawls prostrate where the faithful only kneel, 
. Out-liowls the Dervish, hugs his rags to court 
The squalid Santon's sanctity of dirt; 
And, when beneath the city gateway's span 
Files slow and lung the Meccap caravan, 
And through its midst, pursued by Islam's pray- 
ers, 
The prophet's Word some favored camel bears, 
The marked apostate has his place assigned 
The Koran-bearer's sacred rump behind, 
With brush and pitcher following, grave and 

mute, 
In meek attendance on the holy brute ! 

" Men of the North ! beneath your very eyes, 
By hearth and home, your real danger lies. 
Still day by day some hold of freedom falls, 
Through home-bred traitors fed within its j 

walls. — 
Men whom yourselves with vote and purse sustain, 
At posts of honor, influence, and gain; 
The right of Slavery to your sons to teach, 
And "South-side" Gospels in your pulpits 

preach, 
Transfix the Law to ancient freedom dear 
On the sharp point of her subverted spear, 
And imitate upon her cushion plump 
The niad Missourian lynching from his stump; 
Or, in your name, upon the Senate's floor 
Yield up to Slavery all it asks, and more ; 
And, ere your dull eyes open to the cheat. 
Sell your old homestead underneath your feet ! 
While such as these your loftiest outlooks hold. 
While truth and conscience with your wares are 

sold, 
While grave-browed merchants band themselves 

to aid 
An annual man-hunt for their Southern trade, 
What moral power within your grasp remains 
To stay the mischief on Nebraska's plains?— 
High as the tides of generous impulse flow, 
As far rolls Lack the selfish undertow ; 
And all your brave resolves, though aimed as true 
As the horse-pistol Bahna wha eple drew, 
To Slavery 's bastions lend as slight a shock 
As the poor trooper's shot to Sterling rock ! 

" Yet, while the need of Freedom's cause de- 
mands 
The earnest efforts of your hearts and hands, 
Urged bj nil motives that can prompt the heart 
To prayer and toil ami manhood's manliest part ; 
Though to the soid's deep tocsin Nature joins 
The warning whisper of her Orphic pines, 
The north-wind's anger, and the south-wind's 

sigh, 
The midnight sword-dance of the northern sky, 
And, to the ear that bends above the sod 
Of the green grave-mounds in the Fields of God, 
In low, deep murmurs of rebuke or cheer, 
The land's dead fathers speak their hope or fear, 



Yet let not PasBion wrest from Reason's hand 
The guiding rein and symbol of command. 
Blame lioi the cant ion proffering to your zeal 
A well meant drag upon its hurrying wheel; 
Nor chide the man whose honest doubt extends 
'I'o the means only, not the righteous ends ; 
Nor Tail to weigh the scruples and the fears 
Of milder natures and serener years. 
In the long strife with evil which began 
With the first lapse of new-created man, 
Wisely and well has Providence assigned 
To each his part, — some forward, some behind ; 
And they, too, serve who temper and restrain 
The o'erwarm heart that sets on lire the brain. 
True to yourselves, feed Freedom's altar-flame 
With what you have; let others do the same. 
Spare timid doubters : set like flint your face 
Against the self sold knaves of gain and place : 
Pity the weak ; hut with unsparing hand 
Cast out the traitors who infest the land, — 
From bar, press, pulpit, cast them everywhere, 
By dint of fasting, if you fail by prayer. 
And in their place bring men of antique mould, 
Like the grave fathers of your Age of Cold, — 
Statesmen like those who sought the primal fount 
Of righteous law, the Sermon on the Mount ; 
Lawyers who prize, like Quincy, (to our day 
Still spared, Heaven bless him !) honor more than 

P av i 
And Christian jurists, starry-pure, like Jay ; 
Preachers like Woolman, or like them who bore 
The faith of Wesley to our Western shore, 
And held no convert genuine till he broke 
Alike his servants' and the Devil's yoke ; 
And priests like him who Newport's market trod, 
And o'er its slave-ships shook the bolts of God ! 
So shall your power, with a wise prudence used, 
Strong but forbearing, firm but not abused, 
In kindly keeping with the good of all, 
The nobler maxims of the past recall. 
Her natural home-born right to Freedom give, 
And leave her foe his robber-right, — to live. 
Live, as the snake does in his noisome fen ! 
Live, as the wolf does in his bone-strewn den ! 
Live, clothed with cursing like a robe of flame, 
The focal point of million-fingered shame ! 
Live, till the Southron, who, with all his faults, 
Has manly instincts, in his pride revolts, 
Dashes from oil' him, midst the glad world's 

cheers, 
The hideous nightmare of his dream of years, 
And lifts, self-prompted, with his own right 

hand, 
The vile encumbrance from his glorious land ! 

"So, wheresoe'er our destiny sends forth 
Its widening circles to the South or North, 
Where'er our banner flaunts beneath the stars 
Its mimic splendors and its cloudlike bars, 
There shall Free Labor's hardy children stand 
The equal sovereigns of a slaveless land. 
An I when at last the hunted bison tires, 
And dies o'ertaken by the squatter's tires ; 
And westward, wave on wave, the living flood 
Breaks on the snow-line of majestic Hood; 
And lonely Shasta listening hears the tread 
Of Europe's fair-haired children, Hesper-led ; 
And, gazing downward tlu'ough his hoar-locks 

sees 
The tawny Asian climb his giant knees. 
The Eastern sea shall hush his waves to hear 
Pacific's surf-beat answer Freedom's cheer, 
And one long rolling fire of triumph run 
Between the sunrise and the sunset gun !" 
My task is done. The Showman and his show, 
Themselves but shadows, into shadows go ; 
And, if no song of idlesse I have snug, 
Nor tints of beauty on the canvas flung, — 
If the harsh numbers grate on tender ears, 
And the rough picture overwrought appears, — 



SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE. 



135 



With deeper coloring, with a sterner blast, 
Before my soul a voice and vision passed, 
Such as might Milt in's jarring trump require, 
Or glooms of Dante fringe 1 with lurid fare. 
O, not of choice, for themes of public wrong 
I leave the green and pleasant paths of song, — 
The mild, sweel words which soften and adorn, 
For griding taunt and bitter laugh of scorn. 
More dear to me some song of private worth, 
Some homely idyl of my native North, 
Some summer pastoral of her inland vales 
Or, grim and weird, her winter fireside tales 
Haunted by ghosts of unroturning sails, — 



Lost barks at parting hung from stem to helm 

With prayers of love like dreams on Virgil's elm. 

N'>r private grief nor malice holds my pen ; 

I owe but kindness to my fellow-men ; 

And, South or North, wherever hearts of prayer 

Their woes and weakness to our Father bear, 

Wherever fruits of Christian love are found 

In holy lives, to me is holy ground. 

But the time passes. It were vain to crave 

A late indulgence. What 1 had I gave. 

Forget the poet, but his warning heed, 

And shame his poor word with your nobler deed. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDF. 



White clouds, whose shadows haunt the deep, 
Light mists, whose soft embraces keep 
The sunshine on the hills asleep ! 

O isles of calm ! — O dark, still wood ! 
And stiller skies that o-verbrood 
Your rest with deeper quietude ! 

shapes and hues, dim beckoning, through 
Yon mountain gaps, my longing view 
Beyond the purple and the blue, 

To stiller sea and greener land, 

And softer lights and airs more bland, 

And skies, — the hollow of God's hand ! 

Transfused through you, O mountain friends ! 
With mine your solemn spirit blends, 
And life no more hath separate ends. 

1 read each misty mountain sign, 

I Know the voice of wave and pine, 
And I am yours, and ye are mine. 

Life's burdens fall, its discords cease, 

I lapse into the glad release 

Of Nature's own exceeding peace. 

O, welcome calm o"f heart and mind ! 
A 5 falls yon fir-tree's loosened rind 
To leave a tenderer growth behind, 

So fall the weary years away ; 
A chil I again, my head I lay 
Upon the lap of this sweet day. 

This western wind hath Lethean powers, 
Yon noonday cloud nepenthe showers, 
The Like is white with lotus-flowers ! 

Even Duty's voice is faint and low, 

And slumberous Conscience, waking slow, 

Forgets her blotted scroll to show. 

The Shadow which pursues us all, 
Whose ever-nearing steps appall, 
Whose voice we hear behind' us all, — 

That Shadow blends with mountain gray, 
It speaks but what the light waves say, — 
Death walks apart from Fear to-day ! 



Rocked on her breast, these pines and I 
Alike on Nature's love rely ; 
And equal seems to live or die. 

Assured that He whose presence fills 
With light the spaces of these hills 
No evil to his creatures wills, 

The simple faith remains, that He 
Will do, whatever that may be, 
The best alike for man and tree. 

What mosses over one shall grow, 

What light and life the other know, . 

Unanxious, leaving Him to show. 

II. EVENING. 

Yon mountain's side is black with night, 
While, broad-orbed, o'er its gleaming crown, 

The moon, slow-rounding into sight, 
On the hushed inland sea looks down. 

How start to light the clustering isles, 
Each silver-hemmed ! How sharply show 

The shadows of their rocky piles, 
And tree-tops in the wave below ! 

How far and strange the mountains seem, 
Dim-looming through the pale, still light ! 

The vague, vast grouping of a dream, 
They stretch into the solemn night. 

Beneath, lake, wood, and peopled vale, 

Hushed by that presence grand and grave, 

Are silent, save the cricket's wail, 
And low response of leaf and wave. 

Fair scenes ! whereto the Day and Night 

Make rival love, I leave ye soon, 
What time before the eastern light 

The pale ghost of the setting moon 

Shall hide behind yon rocky spines, 

And the young archer, Morn, shall break 

His arrows on the mountain pines, 
And, golden-sandalled, walk the lake ! 

Farewell ! around this smiling bay 

Gay-hearted Health, and Life in bloom, 

With' lighter steps than mine, may stray 
In radiant summers yet to come. 

But none shall more regretful leave 
These waters and these hills than I : 

Or, distant, fonder dream how eve 
Or dawn is painting wave and sky ; 



136 THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID. 


How rising moons shim- sad and mild 


A child, with wonder-widened eyes, 


( Mi wooded isle and Bih ering bay, 


< ) I rawed and troubled bj 1 he sight 


( >r mi i ing suns bej ond i hi piled 


Of hot, red sands, and brazen skies, 


A ml purple mouti ba ad the day ; 


And anchorite. 


Nor laughing girl, nor bearding boj , 


" What dost thou here, poor man ? No shade 


\<>] i il] pul ed maul 1, lingering here, 


OJ cool, green donms, nor grass, nor well, 


Shall add, bo life's abounding joj , 


Nor coi n nor \ ines. The hermit said : 


The charmed repose bo suffej ing dear. 


" With Cod 1 dwell. 


still waits kind Ufa! ure bo impart 


" Alone with 1 1 i tn in this great calm, 


1 irr choicest gi fts bo such a gain 


1 live not by t he out waul sense ; 


An enl ranee bo her loving heart 


,M.\ Nile his love, m\ sheltering palm 


Through the sharp discipline of pain. 


His provid 


1 \-ivi ,i I'pim bhe 1 rand that takes 


The child gazed round him. " Does God live 


One blessing from us others Eall ; 


Here oni\ : where the desert's i im 


And, soon or la1 e, our Pal he] makes 


Is green with coin, at morn and eve, 


His perfect recompense to .-ill ! 


IN pray toll mi. 


O, watched by Silence and the Night, 


" My brother tills beside the Nile 


And folde l in the strong embrace 


Hi, ht i le in hi : beneatb t he leaves 


Of the great mountains, with the light 


My sisters sit. and spin the while, 


t >f the su eet heave is upon t hy face, 


My mot, her weaves. 


Lake of the Northland ! keep thy dower 


" And when the millet's ripe heads fall, 


( >f beauty still, and while al>m e 


And all the Lean field hangs iii pod, 


Thj solemn mountains speak of power, 


My mother smiles, and says that all 


lie thou the mirroi of < rod's love. 


Are gifts from < rod 




" And when to share our evening meal, 




She calls the stranger at the door, 






She sa\ s God lids the hands that deal 




Pood to the poor." 


THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID. 






Adown the hermit's wasted cheeks 


< ) STRONG, upwelling praj its of faith, 


Glistened the flovt of human tears ; 


From Inmost founts of life ye start, — 


■ "Dear Lord !" he said, "thy angel speaks, 


The spirit's pulse, the vital breath 


Thy servant hears." 


Of soul and heart ! 






Within his arms the child he took, 


Prom pastoral boil, Er traffic's din, 


And 1 1 ghf of home and life with men; 


A lour, iii crowds, at home, abroad, 


And all his pilgrim feet l'oryook 


Unheard of man, \ e enter in 


Returned again. 


The car of < tod. 






The palmy shadows cool and long, 


Ye 1 k no forced and measured tasks, 


The eyes that smiled through Lavish locks, 


Nor wear] rote, nor formal chains ; 


Hi 's cradle hymn and harvest song, 


'The simple heart, that freely asks 


And bleat of flocks. 


In love, obtains. 






"() child!' he said, " thou tcachesf me 


For man t he Iii ing temple is : 


There is no place where God is not; 


The mercj -seat and cherubim, 


That, low will make, where'er it lie, 


A ml all the ho|\ )D\ steries, 


A holy spot." 


1 [e bears « ith him. 






He rose from off the desert sand, 


Ami most avails the prayer of love, 


And, leaning on his staff of thorn, 


Which, wordless, shapes itself in deeds, 


Went,, with the young child, hand-in-hand, 


Ami wearies Heaven for naught above 


Like night with morn. 


( >ur Common needs. 






They crossed Mm desert's burning line. 

And heard the palm- tree's rust, line fan, 


Which brings to God's all-perfect will 


That trust of li is undoubting child 


The Nile bird's cry, the low of kine, 


Wherebj all seeming good and ill 


And voice iff man. 


A re reconciled. 






Unquestioning, his childish guide 

He followed as the small hand led 


Ami, seeking not for special signs 


( >f Eavor, is content bo fall 


To where a woman, gentle-eyed, 


Within the providence which shines 


Her distal!' led. 


And rains on all. 




Afnie, the Thebaid hermit leaned 

\ i noontime o'er the sacred word. 
Was it, an angel or a fiend 


She rose, she clasped lier truant boy, 
She thanked the stranger with her eyes. 

The hermit, gazed in doubt and joy 
And dumb surprise. 


Whose VOice lie heard ? 


It broke the desert's hush of awe, 


And lo ! — with sudden warmth and light 


A human utterance, sweet and mild ; 


A tender memory thrilled his frame; 


And, looking up, the hermit saw 


New-born, the world-lost anchorite 


A little child. 


A man became. 



BURNS. 



137 




Scottish maid and lover.*' 



"O sister of El Zara's race, 
Behold me ! — had we not one mother ? " 

She gazed into the stranger's face ;— 
" Thou art my brother ? " 

"O kin of blood !— Thy life of use 
And patient trust is more than mine ; 

And wiser than the gray recluse 
This child of thine. 

"For, taught of him whom God hath sent, 
That toil is praise, and love is prayer, 

I come, life's cares and pains content 
With thee to share." 

Even as his foot the threshold crossed, 
The hermit's better life began ; 

Its holiest saint the Thebaid lost, 
And found a man ! 



ON RECEIVING 



BURNS. 

A SPRIG OF HEATHER IN 
BLOSSOM. 



No more these simple flowers belong 
To Scottish maid and Lover ; 

Sown in the common soil of song, 
They bloom the wide world over. 

In smiles and tears, in sun and showers 
The minstrel and the heather, 

The deathless singer and the flowers 
He sang of live together. 

Wild heather-bells and Robert Burns ! 

The moorland flower and peasant ! 
How, at their mention, memory turns 

Her pages old and pleasant ! 



The gray sky wears again its gold 

And purple of adorning, 
And manhood's noonday shadows hold 

The dew of boyhood's morning. 

The dews that washed the dust and soil 

From off the wings of pleasure, 
The sky, that flecked the ground of toil 

\\ iili golden threads of leisure. 

I call to mind the summer day, 

The early harvest mowing, 
The sky with sun and cloud at play, 

And flowers with breezes blowing. 

I hear the blackbird in the corn, 

The locust in the having ; 
And, like the fabled hunter's horn, 
Old tunes my heart is playing. 

How oft that day, with fond delay, 

I sought the maple's shallow, 
And sang wit h Burns t hie hours away, 

Forgetful of the meadow ! 

Bees bummed, birds twittered, overhead 

1 heard the squirrels leaping, 
The good dog listened while I read, 

And wagged his teal in keeping. 

I watched him while in sportive mood 
I read " The. Two. Dog.'i' " story, 

And half belie\ e I he understood 
The poet's allegory. 

Sweet, day, sweet songs ! -The golden hours 
(Irew brighter for that singing. 

From brook and bird and meadow flowers 
A dearer welcom.' bringing. 



138 



BURNS.— WILLIAM FORSTER. 



New light on home-seen Nature beamed, 

New glory over Woman ; 
A ml dai I v fife and dutj Mimed 

No longer poor and common. 

I woke to find the simple truth 

« »i !;ici ;nnl Heeling Setter 
Than all the dreams thai, held my youth 

A still repining debtor : 

That Nature gives her handmaid, Art, 
'I'ii, themes of sweet discoursing; 

The tender idyls of the heart 
In every tongue rehearsing. 

Why dream of lands of gold and pearl, 

Of Loving knight and lady, 
When fanner DOJ and I ia re font girl 

Were wandering there already ? 

I saw through all familiar things 

The romance underlying ; 
The joys and griefs that plume the wings 

Ol Fancy skyward flying. 

I saw the same blithe day return, 

The same sweet fall of even, 
That rose on wooded Craigie-burn, 

And sank on crystal Devon. 

I matched with Scotland's heathery hdls 
The sweetbrier and the clover ; 

With Ayr and Doon, my native rills, 
Their wood-hymns chanting over. 

O'er rank and pomp, as he had seen, 

I saw the Man uprising ; 
No longer common or unclean. 

The child of God's baptizing ! 

With clearer eyes I saw the worth 

Of life among the lowly ; 
The Bible at his Cotter's hearth 

Had made my own more holy. 

And if at times an evil strain, 

To lawless love appealing, 
Broke in upon the sweet refrain 

Of pure and healthful feeling, 

It died upon the eye and ear, 

No inward answer gaining ; 
No heart had I to sec" or hear 
The discord and the staining. 

Let those who never erred forget 
His worth, in vain bewailings ; 
Sweet Soul of Song !— I own my debt 

Uncancelled by his failings ! 

Lament who will the ribald line 
Which tells his lapse from duty, 

How kissed the maddening iips of wine 
Or wanton ones of beauty ; 

But think, while falls that shade between 

The erring one and Heaven, 
That he who loved like Magdalen, 

Like her may be forgiven. 

Not his the song whose thunderous chime 

Eternal echoes render, — 
The mournful Tuscan's haunted rhyme, 

And Milton's starry splendor ! 

B;it who his human heart has laid » 

To Nature's bosom nearer? 
Who sweetened toil like him, or paid 

To love a tribute clearer ? 



Through all his tuneful art, how strong 

The human feeling gushes ! 
The very moonlight of his song 

Is warm with smiles and Mushes ! 

(Jive lettered pomp to teeth of Time, 
80 " Bonnie J )oon " hut tarry ; 

Blot out the Epic's stately rhyme 
But spare his Highland' Mary ! 



WILLIAM FORSTER." 

The years are many since his hand 

Was laid upon my head. 
Too weak and young to understand 

The serious words he said. 

Yet often now the good man's look 

Before me seems to swim. 
As if some inward feeling took 

The outward guise of him. 

As if, in passion's heated war, 
Or near temptation's charm, 

Through him the low-voiced monitor 
Forewarned me of the harm. 

Stranger and pilgrim ! — from that clay 

Of meeting, first and last, 
Wherever Duty's pathway lay, 

His reverent steps have passed. 

The poor to feed, the lost to seek, 

To proffer life to death," 
Hope to the erring, — to the weak 

The strength of his own faith. 

To plead the captive's right ; remove 
The sting of hate from Law ; 

And soften in the fire of love 
The hardened steel of War. 

He walked the dark world, in the mild, 

Still guidance of the Light ; 
In tearful tenderness a child, 

A strong man in the right. 

From what great perils, on his way, 
He found, in prayer, release ; 

Through what abysmal shadows lay 
His pathway unto peace, 

God knoweth : we could only see 
The tranquil strength he gained ; 

The bondage lost in liberty, 
The fear in love unfeigned. 

And I, — my youthful fancies grown 

The habit of the man. 
Whose field of life by angels sown 

The wilding vines o'erran, — 

Low bowed in silent gratitude. 

My manhood's heart enjoys 
That reverence for the pure and good 

Which blessed the dreaming boj ' . 

Still shines the light of holy lives 
Like star-beams over doubt; 

Each sainted memory. Christlike, drives 
Some dark possession out. 

O friend ! O brother ! not in vain 

Thy life so calm and true, 
The silver dropping of the rain, 

The fall of summer dew ! 



RANTOUL— THE DREAM OF PIO NONO. 



139 



How many burdened hearts have prayed 
Their lives like thine might be ! 

But more shall pray henceforth for aid 
To lay them down like thee. 

With weary hand, yet steadfast will, 

In old age as in youth, 
Thy Mastar found thee sowing still 

The good seed of his truth. 

As mi thy task-field closed the day 

In golden-skied decline, 
His angel met thee on the way, 

And lent his arm to thine. 

Thy latest care for man, — thy last 
Of earthly thought a prayer, — 

O, who thy mantle, backward cast, 
Is worthy now to wear V 

Methinks the mound which marks thy bed 
Might bless our land and save, 

As rose, of old, to life the dead 
Who touched the prophet's grave ! 



RANTOUL. « 

One day, along the electric wire 
His manly word for Freedom sped ; 

We came next morn : that tongue of fire 
Said only, " He who spake is dead ! " 

Dead ! while his voice was living yet, 
In echoes round the pillared dome ! 

Dead ! while his blotted page lav wet 
With themes of state and loves of home ! 

Dead ! in that crowning grace of time, 
That triumph of life's zenith hour ! 

Dead ! while we watched his manhood's prime 
Break from the slow bud into flower ! 

Dead! he so great, and strong, and wise, 
While the mean thousands yet drew breath ; 

How deepened, through that dread surprise, 
The mystery and tiie awe of death ! 

From the high place whereon our votes 
Had borne him, clear, calm, earnest, fell 

His first words, like the prelude notes 
Of some great anthem yet to swell. 

We seemed to see our flag unfurled, 
Our champion waiting in his place 

For the last battle of the world, — 
'J'he Armageddon of the race. 

Through him we hoped to speak the word 
Which wins the freedom of a land ; 

And lift, for human right, the sword 

Which dropped from Hampden's dying hand. 

For he had sat at Sidney's feet, 
And walked with Pym and Vane apart ; 

And, through the centuries, felt the beat 
Of Freedom's march in Cromwell's heart. 

He knew the paths the worthies he! 1, 
Where England's best and wisest trod ; 

And, lingering, drank the springs that welled 
Beneath the touch of Milton's rod. 

No wild enthusiast of the right, 

Self-poised and clear, he showed alway 

The coolness of his northern night, 
The ripe repose of autunn's day. 



His step was slow, yet forward still 

He pressed where others paused or failed ; 

The calm star clomb with constant will, — 
The restless meteor flashed and paled ! 

Skilled in its subtlest wile, he knew 
And owned the higher ends of Law ; 

Still rose majestic on his view 
The awful Shape the schoolman saw. 

Her home the heart of God ; her voice 

The choral harmonies whereby 
The stars, through all then spheres, rejoice, 

The rhythmic rule of earth and sky ! 

We saw his great powers misapplied 
To poor ambitions ; yet, through all, 

We saw him take the weaker side, 

And right the wronged, and free the thrall. 

Now, looking o'er the frozen North, 
For one like him in word and act, 

To call her old, free spirit forth, 
And give her faith the life of fact, — 

To break her party bonds of shame, 

And labor with the zeal of him 
To make the Democratic name 

Of Liberty the synonyme, — 

We sweep the land from hill to strand. 
We seek the strong, the wise, the brave, 

And, sad of heart, return to stand 
In silence by a new-made grave ! 

There, where his breezy hills of home 
Look out upon his sail-white seas, 

The sounds of winds and waters come, 
And shape themselves to words like these : 

"Why, murmuring, mourn that he, whose power 

Was lent to Party over-long, 
Heard the still whisper at the hour 

He set his foot on Party wrong ? 

"The human life that closed so well 

No lapse of folly now can stain : 
The lips when -e Freedom's protest fell 

No meaner thought can now profane. 

" Mightier than living voice his grave 

That lofty protest utters o'er ; 
Through roaring wind and smiting wave 

It speaks his hate of wrong once more. 

" Men of the North ! your weak regret 

Is wasted here ; arise and pay 
To freedom and to him your debt, 

By following where he led the way ! " 



THE DREAM OF PIO NONO. 



It 



chanced, that while the pious troops of 

France 
Fought in the crusade Pio Nono preached, 
What time the holy Bourbons stayed his hands 
(The Hur and Aaron meet for such a Moses), _ 
Stretched forth from Naples towards rebellious 

Rome 
To bless the ministry of Oudinot, 
And sanctify his iron homilies 
And sharp persuasions of the bayonet, 
That the great pontiff fell asleep, and dreamed. 

•He stood by Lake Tiberias, in the sun 
Of the bright Orient ; and beheld the lame, 



140 



TATTLER. 



The sick, and blind, knee] at the Master's feet, 
And rise up whole. And, sweetlj over all, 
Dropping the ladder of their hymn of praise 
Prom 1 n ■ .- 1 \ en to eai th, in silver rounds of song, 
He beard the blessed angels sing of peace, 
< rood will to man, and glory to the Lord. 

Then one, with feet unshod, and leathern face 
I [ardened and d i rkened b] fiei ee summer sues 
And hot winds of i in- desert, closer drew 
His fisher's haick, and g rded up liis loins, 
And spake, as one who had authority: 
' ' ( Jome t lion with me." 

Lakeside and eastern sky 
And the sweei s mg of angels passed away, 
And, wit h a dream - alaci ; j of change, 
Tin' priest, and the swart- fisher by his side, 
Beheld the Eternal City lilt its domes 
And solemn fanes and monumental pomp 
Above the waste Campagna. < >n the hills 
The blaze of burning villas rose and tell. 
And momently the mortar's iron throat 
Roared from the trenches; and, within the walls, 
Sharp crash of shells, low groans of human pain, 
Shout, drum beat, and the clanging larum-bell, 
And tramp of hosts, sent up a mingled sound, 
Hall' wail and half defiance. As they passed 
The gate of San Pancrazio, human blood 
Plowed ankle-high about them, and dead men 
Choked the long street with gashed and gory 

piles, — 
A ghastly banicade of mangled flesh, 
Prom which, at times, quivered a living hand, 
And white lips moved and moaned. A father 

tore 
His gray hairs, by the body of his son, 
In frenzy; and his fair young daughter wept 
On his old bosom. Suddenly a flash 
Clove the thick sulphurous air, and man and 

maid 
Sank, crushed and mangled by the shattering 

shell. 

Then spake the Galilean : " Thou hast seen 
The blessed Master and his works of love ; 
Look now on thine ! Hear'st thou the angels sing 
Above this open hell ? Thou < rod's high-priest ! 
Thou the Vicegerent of the Prince of Peace ! 
'limn tlie successor of his chosen ones! 
I, Peter, fisherman of Galilee, 
In the dear Master's name, and for the love 
Of his true Church, proclaim thee Antichrist, 
Alien and separate from his holy faith, 
\\ ide as the difference between death and life, 
The hate of man and the great love of God ! 
Hence, and repent ! " 

Thereat the pontiff woke, 
Trembling, and muttering o'er his fearful dream. 
" What means he? " cried the Bourbon. 

" Nothing more 
Than that your majesty hath all too well 
Catered for your good guests, and that, in sooth, 
The I lulv Father's supper troubleth him," 
Said Cardinal Antonelli, with a smile. 



TAULER. 

TAULER, the preacher, walked, one autumn day, 
Witle.it the walls of Strasburg, by the Rhine, 

iiiit the solemn Miracle of Life ; 
As i. : dciing in a starless night, 

Peels, momently, the jar of unseen waves, 

And hears the thunder of an unknown sea, 
Breaking along an unimagiued shore. 



And as he walked he prayed. Even the same 
Old prayer with which, for hall' a score of years, 
Morning, and noon, and evening, lip and heart 
Had groaned : •"Have pity upon me, Lord ! 
Thou seest, while teaching oth rs, I am blind. 
Send me a man who can direct my steps ! " 

Then, .as he mused, he heard along his path 
A so md as of an old man's staff among 
Th.' dry, <\<m\ linden-leaves ; .-md. looking up, 
He saw a stranger, weak, and poor, and old. 

•■ Peace be unto thee, father ! " Tauler said, 
" God give thee a good day ! " The old man 

raised 
Slowly his calm blue eyes. " I thank thee, son; 
But all my days are good, and none are ill. " 

Wondering thereat, the preacher spake again, 
" I rod give thee happy life." Theold man smiled, 
" I never am unhappy." 

Tauler laid 
His hand upon the stranger's coarse gray sleeve: 
"Tell me, <) Pather, what thy strange words 

mean. 
Seivh man's days are evil, and his life 
Sid as the grave it leads to. " "Nay, my son, 
Our times are in Cod's hands, and till our clays 
Are as our needs ; for shadow as for sun, 
Foretold as heat, for want as wealth, alike 
Our thanks are due, since that is best which is; 
And that which is not, sharing not his life, 
Is evil only as devoid of good. 
And for the happiness of which I spake 
I find in it submission to his will, 
And calm trust in the holy Trinity 
Of Knowledge, Goodness, and Almighty Power." 

Silently wondering, for a little space, 
Stood the great preacher ; then he spake as one 
Who, suddenly grappling with a haunting 

thought 
Which long has followed, whispering through the 

dark 
Strange terrors, drags it, shrieking, into light: 
" What if God's will consign thee hence to 

Hell V " 

"Then,"' said the stranger, cheerily, "be it so. 
What Hell may be I know not ; this I know, — 
I cannot lose the presence of the Lord: 
One arm, Humility, takes hold upon 
His dear Humanity; the other, Love, 
Clasps his Divinity. So where I go 
He goes ; and better fire-walled Hell with Him 
Than golden-gated Paradise without." 

Tears sprang in Tauler's eyes. A sudden light, 
Like the first ray which fell on chaos, clove 
Apart the shadow wherein he had walked 
Darkly at noon. And, as the strange old man 
Went his slow way, until his silver hair 
Set like the white moon where the hills of vine 
Slope to the Rhino, he bowed his head and said : 
" My prayer is answered. ( 5-od hath sent the man 
Long sought, to teach me, by his simple trust, 
Wisdom the weary schoolmen never knew." 

So, entering with a changed and cheerful step 
The citj gates, he saw, far down the street, 
A mighty shadow break the light of noon, 
Which tracing backward till its airy lines 
Hard, ned to stony plinths, he raised his eyes 
( r'er broad facade and lofty pediment, 
O'er archil t a - e and frieze and sainted niche, 
Up tin bone 1 ice work chiselled by the wise 
Erwin of Steinbach, dizzily up to where 
In the uoon-brightness the great Minster's 
tower, 



LINES.— THE VOICES. 



141 



Jewelled with sunbeams on its mural crown, 
Rose like a visible prayer. " Behold ! " he said, 
"The stranger's faith made plain before mine 

eyes. 
As yonder tower outstretches to the earth 
The dark triangle of its shade alone 
When the clear day is shining on its top, 
So, darkness in the pathway of Man's life 
Is but the shadow of God's providence, 
By the great Sun of Wisdom cast thereon ; 
But what is dark below is light in Heaven." 



LINES, 

SUGGESTED I5Y READING A STATE PAPER, WHERE- 
IN THE HIGHER LAW IS INVOKED TO SUSTAIN 
THE LOWER ONJ5. 

A PIOUS magistrate ! sound his praise throughout 
The wondering churches. Who shall henceforth 
doubt 
That the long-wished millennium draweth 
nigbV 
Sin in high places has become devout, 

Tithes mint, goes painful-faced, and prays its 

lie 
Straight up to Heaven, and calls it piety ! 

Tae pirate, watching from his bloody deck 

The weltering galleon, heavy with the gold 
Of Acapnlco, holding death in check 
While prayers are said, brows crossed, and 
beads are told, — 
The robber, kneeling where the wayside cross 
On dark Abruzzo tells of life's dread loss 
From his own carbine, glancing still abroad 
For some new victim, offering thanks to God ! — 

Rome, listening at her altars to the cry 
Of midnight Murder, while her hounds of hell 
Scour France, from baptized cannon and holy 
bell 

And thousand-throated priesthood, loud and 
high, 

Pealing Te Deums to the shuddering sky, 

" Thanks to the Lord, who giveth victory ! " 
What prove these, but that crime was ne'er so 

black 
As ghostly cheer and pious thanks to lack V 
Satan is modest. At Heaven's door he lays 
His evil offspring, and, in Scriptural phrase 
And saintly posture, gives to God the praise 
And honor of the monstrous progeny. 
What marvel, then, in our own time to see 
His old devices, smoothly acted o'er, — 
Official piety, locking fast the door 
Of Hope against three million souls of men,— 
Brothers, God's children, Christ's redeemed, — 

and then, 
With uprolled eyeballs and on bended knee, 
Whining a prayer for help to hide the key ! 



THE VOICES. 

"Why urge the long, unecpial fight, 
Since Truth has fallen in the street, 

Or lift anew the trampled light, 
Quenched by the heedless million's feet' 

" Give o'er the thankless task ; forsake 
The fools who know not ill from good ; 

Eat, drink, enjoy thy own, and take 
Thine ease among the multitude. 



' ' Live out thyself ; with others share 
Thy proper life no more ; assume 

The unconcern of sun and air, 

For life or death, or blight or bloom. 

" The mountain pine looks calmly on 
The tires that scourge the plains below, 

Nor heeds the eagle in the sun 

The small birds piping in the snow ! 

" The world is God's, not thine ; let him 
Work out a change, if change must be : 

The hand that planted best can trim 
And nurse the old unfruitful tree." 

So spake the Tempter, when the light 
Of sun and stars had left the sky, 

I listened, through the cloud and night, 
And heard, methought, a voice reply : 

" Thy task may well seem over-hard, 
Who scatterest in a thankless soil 

Thy life as seed, with no reward 
Save that which Duty gives to Toil. 

" Not wholly is thy heart resigned * 
To Heaven's benign and just decree, 

Which, linking thee with all thy kind, 
Transmits their joys and grief s to thee. 

' ' Break off that sacred chain, and turn 
Back on thyself thy love and care ; 

Be thou thine ow nmean idol, burn 
Faith, Hope, and Trust, thy children, there. 

" Released from that fraternal law 
Which shares the common bale and bliss, 

No sadder lot could Folly draw, 

Or Sin provoke from Fate, than this. 

" The meal unshared is food unblest : 
Thou hoard' st in vain what love should spend 

Self -ease is pain ; thy only rest 
Is labor for a worthy end. 

" A toil that gains with what it yields, 
And scatters to its own increase, 

And hears, while sowing outward fields, 
The harvest-song of inward peace. 

" Free-lipped the liberal streamlets run, 
Free shines for all the healthful ray ; 

The stdl pool stagnates in the sun, 
The lurid earth-fire haunts decay ! 

1 ' What is it that the crowd requite 
Thy love with hate, thy truth with lies ? 

And but t > faith, and not to sight, 
The walls of Freedom's temple rise ? 

" Yet do thy work ; it shall succeed 

In thine or in another's day ; 
And, if denied the victor's meed, 

Thou shalt not lack the toiler's pay. 

"Faith shares the future's promise ; Love's 

Self -offering is a triumph won ; 
And each good thought or action moves 

The dark world nearer to the sun. 

" Then faint not, falter not, nor plead 
Thy weakness ; truth itself is strong; 

The lion's strength, the eagle's speed, 
Are not alone vouchsafed to wrong. 

"Thy nature, which, through fire and flood, 
To place or gain finds out its way, 

Hath power to seek the highest good, 
And duty's holiest call obey ! 



142 THE HERO.- 


-MY DREAM. 


"Strivest thou in darkness?- Foes without 


" He looked forward to the mountains, 


In league with traitoi thoughts within; 


Hack on foes that never spare, 


Thy iii-in watch kepi with trembling Doubt 


Then flung him from his saddle 1 , 


And pale Remorse theghostof Sin? — 


And placed the stranger there. 


" 1 last thou not, on sonic W( ek of storm, 


" ' Allah ! hu ! ' Through flashing sabres, 


S sen the sweef Sabbath breaking fair, 


Through a stormy hail of lead, 


And cloud and shadow, sun lit, form 


The good Thessa.li.in charger 


The curtains of its tent of prayer? 


Up the slopes ot olives sped. 


"So, haply, when thy task shall <\id. 


" Hot spurred the turbaned riders ; 


The wrong shall lose itself in right, 


He almost Eelt their breath. 


And all thv ivnk ( 1 : i \ darkness blend 


Where a mountain stream rolled darkly down 


With the long .Sabbath of the light ! " 


Between the hills and death. 




" One brave and manful struggle, — 




He gained the solid land. 
And the cover of the mountains, 






And the carbines of his band ! " 


THE HERO. 






" It was very great and noble," 


" FOR a knight like Bayard, 


Said the moist-eyed listener then, 


Without reproach or fear; 


"But one brave deed makes no hero. 


My light glove on Ids casque of steel, 


Tell me wdiat he since hath been ! " 


My love-knot on his spear ! 




• 


" Still a brave and generous manhood, 


" O for the white plume floating 


Still an honor without stain, 


Sad Zutphen's field above, — 


In the prison^of the Kaiser, 


The lion heart in battle, 


By the barricades of Seine. 


The woman's heart in love ! 






"But dream not helm and harness 


" that man once more were manly, 


The sign of valor true ; 


Woman's pride, and not her scorn : 


Peace hath higher tests of manhood 


That one? more the pale young mother 


Than battle ever knew. 


Dared to boast ' a man is born ' ! 






" Wouldst know him now ? Behold him, 


"But, now life's slumberous current 


The Cadmus of the blind, 


No sun-bowed cascade wakes; 


Giving the dumb lip language, 


No tall, heroic manhood 


The idiot clay a mind. 


The level dulness breaks. 






" Walking his round of duty 


" for a knight like Bayard, 


Serenely day by day, 


Without reproach or fear ! 


With the strong man's hand of labor 


My light glove on his casque of steel, 


And childhood's heart of play. 


My love-knot on his spear ! " 






"True as the knights of story, 


Then I said, my own heart throbbing 


Sir Lancelot and his peers, 


To the time her proud pulse beat, 


Brave in his calm endurance 


"Life hath its regal natures yet, — 


As they in tilt of spears. 


True, tender, brave, and sweet! 






"As waves in stillest waters, 


" Smile not, fair unbeliever ! 


As stars in noonday skies, 


One man, at least, 1 know, 


All that wakes to noble action 


Who might wear the crest, of Bayard 


In his noon of calmness lies. 


Or Sidney's plume of snow. 






" Wherever outraged Nature 


" Once, when over purple mountains 


Asks word or action brave, 


Died away the Grecian sun, 


Wherever struggles labor, 


And the far Cyllenian ranges 


Wherever groans a slave, — 


Paled and darkened, one by one, — 






" Wherever rise the peoples, 


"Pell the Turk, a bolt of thunder, 


Wherever sinks a throne, 


Cleaving all the quiet sky, 


The throbbing heart of Freedom finds 


And against his sharp steel lightnings 


An answer in his own. 


Stood the Suliote but to die. 






" Knight of a better era, 


" Woe for the weak and halting ! 


Without reproach or fear ! 


The crescent blazed behind 


Said I not well that Bayards 


A curving line of sabres, 


And Sidneys still are here? " 


Like fire before the wind ! 




" Last to fly, and first to rally, 






Rode he of whom 1 speak, 




When, groaning in his bridle-path, 




Sank down a wounded Cireek. 


MY DREAM. 


" With the rich Albanian costume 


In my dream, methought I trod, 


Wet with many a ghastly stain, 


Yesternight, a mountain road ; 


Gazing on earth and sky as one 


Narrow as Al Sirat's span, 


Who might not gaze again ! 


High as eagle's flight, it ran. 



THE BAREFOOT BOY. 143 


Overhead, a roof of cloud 


Through the doubt and mystery, 


With its weight of thunder bowed ; 


Grant to us thy steps to see, 


Underneath, to left and right, 


And the grace to draw from thence 


Blankness and abysmal night. 


Larger hope and confidence. 


Here and there a wild-flower blushed, 


Show thy vacant tomb, and let, 


Now and then a bird-song gushed ; 


As of old, the angels sit, 


Now ami then, through ritts of shade, 


Whispering, by its open door : 


Stars shone out, and sunbeams played. 


" Fear not ! He hath gone before ! " 


But the goodly company, 




Walking in that path with me, 
One by one the brink o'erslid, 






One by one the darkness hid. 




Some with wailing and lament, 


THE BAREFOOT BOY. 


Some with cheerful courage went ; 




But, of all who smiled or mourned, 


Blessings on thee, little man, 


Never one to us returned. 


Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan ! 


, 


With thy turned-up pantaloons, 


Anxiously, with eye and ear, 


And thy merry whistled tunes ; 


Questioning that shadow drear, 


With thy red lip, redder still 


Never hand in token stirred, 


Kissod by strawberries on the hill ; 


Never answering voice I heard ! 


With the sunshine on thy face, 




Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace : 


St eper, darker! — lo ! I felt 


From my heart I give thee joy, — 


From my feet the pathway melt. 


I was once a barefoot boy ! 


Swallowed by the black desjaair, 


Prince thou art, — the grown-up man 


And the hungry jaws of air, 


Only is republican. 




Let the million-dollared ride ! 


Past thj stony-throated caves, 


Barefoot, trudging at his side, 


Strangled by the wasli of waves, 


Thou hast more than he can buy 


Past the splintered crags, 1 sank 


In the reach of ear and eye, — 


On a green and flowery bank, — 


Outward sunshine, inward joy: 




Blessings on thee, barefoot boy ! 


Soft as fall of thistle-flown, 




Lightly as a cloud is blown, 


for boyhood's painless play, • 


Soothingly as childhood pressed 


Sleep that wakes in laughing day. 


To the bosom of its rest. 


Health that mocks the doctor's rules, 




Knowledge never learned of schools, 


Of the sharp-horned rocks instead, 


Of the wild bee's morning chase, 


Gre3n and grassy meadows spread, 


Of the wild-flower's time and place, 


Bright with waters singing by 


Flight of fowl and habitude 


Trees that propped a golden sky. 


Of the tenants of the wood ; 




How the tortoise bears his shell, 


Painless, trustful, sorrow-free, 


How the woodchuck digs his cell, 


Old lost faces welcomed me, 


And the ground-mole sinks his well ; 


With whoso sweetness of content 


How the robin feeds her young, 


Still expectant hope was blent. 


How the oriole's nest is hung ; 




Where the whitest lilies blow, 


Waking while the dawning gray 


Where the freshest berries grow, 


Slowly brightened into day, 


Where the groundnut trails its vine, 


Pondering that vision fled, 


Where the wood-grape's clusters shine; 


Thus unto myself I said : — 


Of the black wasp's cunning way, 




Mason of his walls of clay, 


" Steep, and hung with clouds of strife, 


And the architectural plans 


Is our narrow path of life ; 


Of gray hornet artisans ! — 


And our death the dreaded fall 


For, eschewing books and tasks, 


Through the dark, awaiting all. 


Nature answers all he asks ; 




Hand in hand with her he walks, 


"So, with painful steps we climb 


Face to face with her he talks, 


Up the dizzy ways of time, 


Part and parcel of her joy, — 


Ever in the shadow shed 


Blessings on the barefoot boy ! 


By the forecast of our dread. 






for boyhood's time of June, 


"Dread of mystery solved alone, 
Of the untried and unknown ; 


Crowding years in one brief moon, 
When all things I heard or saw, 


Yet the end thereof may seem 


Me, their master, waited for. 


Like the falling of my dream. 


I was rich in flowers and trees, 


Humming-birds and honey-bees ; 


"And this heart-consuming care, 


For my sport the squirrel played, 
Plied the snouted mole his spade ; 


All our fears of here or there, 
Change and absence, loss and death, 


For my taste the blackberry cone 
Purpled over hedge and stone ; 
Laughed the brook for my delight 


Prove but simple lack of faith." 




Through the day and through the night, 


Thou, Most Compassionate ! 


Whispering at the garden wall, 


Who didst stoop to our estate, 


Talked with me from fall to fall ; 


Drinking of the cup we drain, 


Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond, 


Treading in our path of pain, — 


Mine the walnut slopes beyond, 



144 



FLOWERS IN WINTER—THE RENDITION. 



Mine, on bending orchard trees, 
A pples of I [esperidea ! 
Still as my horizon grew, 
Larger grew my riches boo ; 
All the world I saw or knew 
Seemed a complex ( Ihinese toy, 
Fashioned for a barefoot boy ! 

O for festal dainties spread, 
Like my bowl of milk and bread, — 
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood, 
On the dooi stone, graj and rude! 
O'er me, like a regal tent, 
< lloudy ribbed, i he sunset bent, 
Purple curtained, fringed with gold, 
Looped in many a wind-swung fold ; 
While for music came the play 
Of the pied frogs' orchestra; 
And, to light the noisy choir, 
Lit the fly his lamp of fire. 
I was monarch : pomp and joy 
Waited on the barefoot boy ! 

Cheerily, then, my little man. 
Live and laiinh, as boyhood can ! 
Though the flinty slopes be hard, 
Stubble-speared the new-mown sward, 
Every morn shall lead thee through 
Fresh baptisms of the dew ; 
Every evening from thy feet 
Shall the cooi wind kiss the heat : 
All too soon these feet must hide 
In the prison cells of pride, 
Lose the freedom of the sod, 
Like a colt's for work be shod, 
Made to tread the mills of toil, 
Up and down in ceaseless moil : 
Happy if their track be found 
Never on forbidden ground ; 
Happy if they sink not in 
Quick and treacherous sands of sin. 
Ah ! that thou couldst know thy joy, 
Ere it passes, barefoot boy ! 



FLOWERS IN WINTER. 

PAINTED UPON A PORTE LIVRE. 

How strange to greet, this frosty morn, 
In graceful counterfeit of flowers, 

These children of the meadows, born 
Of sunshine and of showers ! 

How well the conscious wood retains 
The pictures of its flower-sown home, — 

The lights and shades, the purple stains, 
And golden hues of bloom ! 

It was a happy thought to bring 
To the dark season's fr#st and rime 

This painted memory of spring, 
This dream of summer-time. 

Our hearts are lighter for its sake, 
Our fancy's age renews its youth, 

And dim-remembered fictions take 
The guise of present truth. 

A wizard of the Merrimack, — 
So old ancestral legends say, — 

Could call green leaf and blossom back 
To frosted stem and spray. 

The dry logs of the cottage wail, 
Beneath his touch, put out their leaves : 

The clay-bound swallow, at his call, 
Played round the icy eaves. 



The settler saw his oaken flail 
Take bud, and bloom before his eyes ; 

From frozen pools he saw the pale, 
Sweet summer lilies rise. 

To their old homes, by man profaned, 

Came the sad dryads, exiled long, 
And through their leafy tongues complained 
Of household use and wrong. 

The beechen platter sprouted wild, 
The pipkin wore its old-time green; 

The cradle o'er the sleeping child 
Became a leafy screen. 

Haply our gentle friend hath met, 
While wandering in her sylvan quest, 

Haunting his native woodlands yet, 
That Druid of the West ;— 

And, while the dew^tn leaf and flower 
Glistened in moonlight clear and still, 

Learned the dusk wizard's spell of power, 
And caught his trick of skill. 

But welcome, be it new or old. 

The gift which makes the day more bright, 
And paints, upon the ground of cold 

And darkness, warmth and light ! 

Without is neither gold nor green ; 

Within, for birds, the birch-logs sing ; 
Yet, summer-like, we sit between 

The autumn and the spring. 

The one, with bridal blush of rose, 

And sweetest breath of woodland balm, 

And one whose matron lips unclose 
In smiles of saintly calm. 

Fill soft and deep, O winter snow ! 

The sweet azalia's oaken dells, 
And hide the bank where roses blow, 

And swung the azure bells ! 

O'erlay the amber violet's leaves, 
The purple aster's brookside home, 

Guard all the flowers her pencil gives 
A life beyond their bloom. 

And she, when spring comes round again, 
By greening slope and singing flood 

Shall wander, seeking, not in vain, 
Her darlings of the wood. 



THE RENDITION. 

I HEARD the train's shrill whistle call, 
I saw an earnest look beseech, 
And rather by that look than speech 

My neighbor told me all. 

And, as I thought of Liberty 

Marched handcuffed down that s worded street, 

The solid earth beneath my feet 
Reeled fluid as the sea. 

I felt a sense of bitter loss, — 

Shame, tearless grief, and stifling wrath, 

And loathing fear, as if my path 
A serpent stretched across. 

All love of home, all pride of place, 
All generous confidence and trust. 
Sank smothering in that deep disgust 

And anguish of disgrace. 



LINES. --THE FRUIT-GIFT.— A MEMORY. 



145 



Down on my native hills of June, 
And home's green quiet, hiding all, 
Fell sudden darkness like the fall 

Of midnight upon noon ! 

And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong, 

Wood-drunken, through the blackness trod, 
Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God 

The blasphemy of wrong. 

" O Mother, from thy memories proud. 
Thy old renown, dear Commonwealth, 
Lend this dead air a breeze of health, 

And smite with stars this cloud. 

' Mother of Freedom, wise and brave. 
Rise awful in thy strength," I said ; 
Ah me ! I spake but to the dead ; 
I stood upon her grave ! 

6th mo. , 1S54. 



LINES, 

ON THE PASSAGE OF THE BILL TO PROTECT THE 
RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES OF THE PEOPLE OF 
THE STATE AGAINST THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT. 

I said I stood upon thy grave, 

My Mother State, when last the moon 
Of blossoms clomb the skies of June. 

And, scattering ashes on my head, 
I wore, undreaming of relief, 
The sackcloth of thy shame and grief. 

Again that moon of blossoms shines 
On leaf and flower and folded wing, 
And thou iiast risen with the spring ! 

Once more thy strong maternal arms 
Are round about thy children flung, — 
A lioness that guards her young ! 

No threat is on thy closed lips, 
But in thine eye a power to smite 
The mad wolf backward from its light. 

Southward the baffled robber's track 
Henceforth runs only ; hereaway, 
The fell lycanthrope finds no prey. 

Henceforth, within thy sacred gates, 
His first low howl shall downward draw 
The thunder of thy righteous law. 

• Not mindless of thy trade and gain, 
But, acting on the wiser plan, 
Thou 'rt grown conservative of man. 

So shalt thou clothe with life the hope, 
Dream-painted on the sightless eyes 
Of him who sang of Paradise, — 

The vision of a Christian man, 
In virtue as in stature great, 
Embodied in a Christian State. 

And thou, amidst thy sisterhood 
Forbearing long, yet standing fast, 
Shalt win their grateful thanks at last ; 

When North and South shall strive no more, 
And all their feuds and fears be lost 
In Freedom's holy Pentecost. 

6th mo., 1855. 

10 



THE FRUIT-GIFT. 

Last night, just as the tints of autumn's sky 
Of sunset faded from our hills and streams, 
I sat, vague listening, lapped in twilight dreams, 
To the leat's rustle, and the cricket's cry. 
Then, like that basket, flush with summer fruit, 
Dropped by the angels at the Prophet's foot, 
Came, unannounced, a gift of clustered sweetness, 
Full-orbed, and glowing with the prisoned 
beams 
Of summery suns, and rounded to completeness 
By kisses of the south-wind and the dew. 
Thrilled with a glad surprise, methought I knew 
The pleasure of the homeward-turning Jew, 
When Eschol's clusters on his shoulders lay, 
Dropping their sweetness on his desert way. 

I said, " This fruit beseems no world of sin. 
Its parent vine, rooted in Paradise, 
O'ercrept the wall, and never paid the price 
Of the great mischief, — an ambrosial tree, 
Eden's exotic, somehow smuggled in, 

To keep the thorns and thistles company." 
Perchance our frail, sad mother plucked in haste 

A single vine-slip as she passed the gate, 
Where the dread sword alternate paled 
burned, 

And the stern angel, pitying her fate, 
Forgave the lovely trespasser, and turned 
Aside his face of tire : and thus the waste 
And fallen world hath yet its annual taste 
Of primal good, to prove of sin the cost, 
And show by one gleaned ear the mighty harvest 
lost. 



and 



A MEMORY. 

Here, while the loom of Winter weaves 
The shroud of flowers and fountains, 

I think of thee and summer eves 
Among the Northern mountains. 

When thunder tolled the twilight's close, 
And winds the lake were rude on, 

And thou wert singing, Ca' the Yowes t 
The bonny yowes of Cluden ! 

When, close and closer, hushing breath, 
Our circle narrowed round 'thee, 

And smiles and tears made up the wreath 
Wherewith our silence crowned thee ; 

And, strangers all, we felt the ties 

Of sisters and of brothers ; 
Ah ! whose of all those kindly eyes 

Now smile upon another's ? 

The sport of Time, who still apart 

The waifs of life is flinging ; 
O, nevermore shall heart to heart 

Draw nearer for that singing ! 

Yet when the panes are frosty-starred, 
And twilight's fire is gleaming, 

I hear the songs of Scotland's bard 
Sound softly through my dreaming ! 

A song that lends to winter snows 
The glow of summer weather, — 

Again I hear thee ca' the yowes 
To Cluden's hills of heather ! 



146 



TO C. S.— KANSAS EMIGRANTS.— SLAVES IN THE DESERT. 



TO C. S. 

If I have seemed more prompt to censure wrong 

Thau praise the right; if seldom to thine ear 

Ah voice bad mingled with the exultant cheer 
Borne upon all our Northern winds along; 
If 1 have failed to join the fickle throng 
In wide-eyed wonder, that thou standest strong 
In victory, surprised in thee to find 
Brougham's scathing power with Canning's grace 

combined ; 
That he, for whom the ninefold Muses sang, 
From their twined aims a giant athlete sprang, 
Barbing the arrows of his native tongue 
With the spent shafts Latona's archer Hung, 
To smite.the Python of our land and time, 
Fell as the monster born of Crissa's slime, 
Like the blind hard who in Oastalian springs 
Tempered the steel that clove the crest of kings, 
And on the shrine of England's freedom laid 
The gifts of Cumse and of Delphi's shade, — 
Small need hast thou of words of praise from me. 

Thoa knowest my heart, dear friend, and weli 
canst guess 

That, even though silent, I have not the less 
Rejoiced to see thy actual life agree 
With the large future which I shaped for thee, 
When, years ago, beside the summer sea, 
White in the moon, we saw the long waves fall 
Baffled and broken from the rocky wall, 
That, to the menace of the brawling flood, 
Opposed alone its massive quietude, 
Calm as a fate ; with not a leaf nor vine 
Nor birch-spray trembling in the still moonshine, 
Crowning it like God's peace. I sometimes think 

That night-scene by the sea prophetical, — 
(For Nature speaks in symbols and in signs, 
And through her pictures human fate divines), — 
That rock, wherelrom we saw the billows sink 

In murmuring rout, uprising clear and tall 
In the white light of heaven, the type of one 
Who, momently by Error's host assailed, 
Stands strong as Truth, in greaves of granite 
mailed ; 

And, tranquil-fronted, listening over all 
The tumult, hears the angels say, Well done ! 



THE KANSAS EMIGRANTS. 

We cross the prairie as of old 
The pilgrims crossed the sea, 

To make the West, as they the East, 
The homestead of the free ! 

We go to rear a wall of men 
On Freedom's southern line, 

And plant beside the cotton-tree 
The rugged Northern pine ! 

We 're flowing from our native hills 

As our free river flow ; 
The blessing of our Mother-land 

Is on us as we go. 

We go to plant her common schools 

On distant prairie swells, 
And give the Sabbaths of the wild 

The music of her bells. 

Upbearing, like the Ark of old, 

The Bible in our van, 
We go to test the truth of God 

Against the fraud of man. 



No pause, nor rest, save where the streams 

That feed the Kansas run. 
Save where our Pilgrim gonfalon 

Shall flout the setting sun ! 

We '11 tread the prairie as of old 

Our fathers sailed the sea., 
And make the West, as they the East, . 

The homestead of the free ! 



SONG OF SLAVES IN THE DESERT 

Where are we going ? where are we going, 

Where are we going, Rubee i 
Lord of peoples, lord of lands, 
Look across these shining sands, 
Through the furnace of the noon, 
Through the white light of the moon. 
Strong the Ghiblee wind is blowing, 
Strange and huge the world is growing ! 
Speak and tell us where we are going, 
Where are we going, Rubee ? 

Bornou land was rich and good, 
Wells of water, fields of food, 
Donna fields, and bloom of bean, 
And the palm-tree cool and green : 
Bornou land we see no longer, 
Here we thirst and here we hunger, 
Here the Moor-man smites in anger : 
Where are we going, Rubee V 

When we went from Bornou land, 
We were like the leaves and sand, 
We were many, we are few ; 
Life has one, and death has two : 
Whitened bones our path are showing, 
Thou All-seeing, thou All-knowing ! 
Hear us, tell us where are we going, 
Where are we going, Rubee ? 

Moons of marches from our eyes 
Bornou land behind us lies; 
Stranger round us day by day 
Bends the desert circle gray ; 
Wild the waves of sand are flowing, 
Hot the winds above them blowing, — 
Lord of all things ! — where are we going, 
Where are we going, Rubee ? 

We are weak, but Thou art strong ; 
Short our lives, but Thine is long; 
We are blind, but Thou hast eyes ; 
We are fools, but Thou art wise ! 
Thou, our morrow's pathway knowing 
Through the strange world round us growing, 
Hear us, tell us where are we going, 
Where are we going, Rubee ? 



LINES, 

INSCRIBED TO FRIENDS UNDER ARKEST FOR 
TREASON AGAINST THE SLAVE POWER. 

The age is dull and mean. Men creep, 
Not walk ; with blood too pale and tame 
To pay the debt thej owe to shame; 

Buy cheap, sell dear ; eat, drink, and sleep 
Down-pillowed, deaf to moaning want; 

Pay tithes for soul insurance ; keep 
Six days to Mammon, one to Cant. 



THE NEW EXODUS.— THE HASCHISH. 



147 



In such a time, give thanks to God, 
That somewhat of the holy rage 
With which the prophets in their age 

On all its decent seemings trod, 
Has set your feet upon the lie, 

That man and ox and soul and clod 
Are market stock to sell and buy ! 

The hot words from your lips, my own, 

To caution trained, might not repeat ; 

But if some tares among the wheat 
( >f generous thought and deed were sown, 

No common wrong provoked your zeal ; 
The silken gauntlet that is thrown 

In such a quarrel rings like steel. 

The brave old strife the fathers saw 
For Freedom calls for men again 
Like those who battled not in vain 

For England's Charter, Alfred's law; 
And right of speech and trial just 

Wag.? in your name their ancient war 
With venal courts and perjured trust. 

God's ways seem dark, but, soon or late, 

They touch the shining hills of day ; 

The evil cannot brook delay, 
The good can well afford to wait. 

Give erminod knaves their hour of crime ; 
Ye have the future grand and great, 

The safe appeal of Truth to Time ! 



THE NEW EXODUS. 94 

By fire and cloud, across the desert sand, 

And through the parted waves, 
From their long bondage, with an outstretched 
hand, 

God led the Hebrew slaves ! 

Dead as the letter of the Pentateuch, 

As Egypt's statues cold, 
In the adytum of the sacred book 

Now stands that marvel old. 

"Lo, God is great !" the simple Moslem says. 

We seek the ancient date, 
Turn the dry scroll, and make that living phrase 

A dead one : "God was great ! " 

And, like the Coptic monks by Mousa's wells, 

We dream of wonders past, 
Vague as the tales the wandering Arab tells, 

Each drowsier than the last. 

O fools and blind ! Above the Pyramids 

Stretches once more that hand. 
And tranced Egypt, from her stony lids, 

Flings back her veil of sand. 

And morning-smitten Memnon, singing, wakes 

And, listening by his Nile, 
O'er Amnion's grave and awful visage breaks 

A sweet and human smile. 

Not, as before, with hail and fire, and call 
Of death for midnight graves. 



But in the stillness of the noonday, fall 
The fetters of the slaves. 

No longer through the Red Sea, as of old, 

The bondmen walk dry shod ; 
Through human hearts, by love of him controlled, 

Runs now that path of God ! 



THE HASCHISH. 

Of all that Orient lands can vaunt 
Of marvels with our own competing, 

The strangest is the Haschish plant, 
And what will follow on its eating. 

What pictures to the taster rise, 

Of Dervish or of Almeh dances ! 
Of Eblis, or of Paradise, 

Set all aglow with Houri glances ! 

The poppy visions of Cathay, 

The heavy beer-trance of the Suabian ; 

The wizard lights and demon play 
Of nights Walpurgis and Arabian ! 

The Mollah and the Christian dog 

Change place in mad metempsychosis ; 

The Muezzin climbs the synagogue. 
The Rabbi shakes his beard at Moses ! 

The Arab by his desert well 

Sits choosing from some Caliph's daughters, 
And hears his single camel's bell 

Sound welcome to his regal quarters. 

The Koran's reader makes complaint 

Of Shitan dancing on and off it ; 
The robber offers alms, the saint 

Drinks Tokay and blasphemes the Prophet. 

Such scenes that Eastern plant awakes ; 

But we have one ordained to beat it, 
The Haschish of the West, which makes 

Or fools or knaves of all who eat it. 

The preacher eats, and straight appears 

His Bible in a new translation ; 
Its angels negro overseers, 

And Heaven itself a snug plantation ! 

The man of peace, about whose dreams 
The sweet millennial angels cluster, 

Tastes the mad weed, and plots and schemes, 
A raving Cuban filibuster ! 

The noisiest Democrat, with ease. 
It turns to Slavery's parish beadle ; 

The shrewdest statesman eats and sees 
Due southward point the polar needle. 

The Judge partakes, and sits erelong 
Upon his bench a railing blackguard ; 

Decides off-hand that right is wrong, 
And reads the ten commandments backward 

O potent plant ! so rare a taste 
Has never Turk or Gentoo gotten • 

The hempen Haschish of the East 
Is powerless to our Western Cotton . 



us 



MARY GARVIN. 



BALLADS. 



MAIiV GARVIN. 

From the heart of Waumbek Methna, from the 

lake that never fails, 
Palls ilif Saco in the green lap of Conway's in 

tervales ; 
There, in wild and virgin Ereshness, its waters 

foam and flow. 
As when Darby Field first saw them, two bun 

dred 3 ears ago. 

But, vexed in all its seaward course with bridges, 
dams, and mills, 

How changed is Saco's stream, how lost its free- 
dom of the hills, 

Since travelled Jocelyn, factor Vines, and stately 
< lhampei noon 

Heard on its banks the gray wolfs howl, the 
trumpet of the loon ! 

With smoking axle hot with speed, with steeds 
of fire and steam, 

Wide-waked To-day leaves Yesterday behind 
him like a dream. 

Still, from the hurrying train of Life, fly back- 
ward far and cast 

The milestones of the fathers, the landmarks of 
the past. 

But human hearts remain unchanged : the sor- 
row and the sin. 

The loves and hopes and fears of old, are to our 
own akin ; 

And if, in tales our fathers told, the songs our 
mothers sung, 

Tradition wears a snowy beard, Romance is 
always young. 

sharp-lined man of traffic, on Saco's banks to- 
day ! 

O mill-girl watching late and long the shuttle's 
restless play ! 



The goodwife dropped her needles : "It is twenty 

years to-day, 
Since the Indians full on Saco, and stole our 

child away." 

Then they sank into the silence, Eor each knew 

the other's thought, 
()1 a great, and common Borrow, and words were 

needed not. 

"Who knocks?" cried Goodman Garvin. The 

door was open thrown ; 
On two strangers, man and maiden, cloaked and 

furred, the lire light shone. 

One with courteous gesture lifted the bear-skin 

from bis head ; 
"Lives here Elkanah Garvin ? " "I am he," the 

goodman said. 

" Sit ye down, and dry and warm ye, for the night 

is chill with rain." 
And the goodwife drew the settle, and stirred 

the lire amain. 

The maid unclasped her cloak -hood, the lire-light 

glistened fair 
In her large, moist eyes, and over soft folds of 

dark brown hair. 

Dame Garvin looked upon her : " It is Mary's 

self I see ! 
Dear heart!" she cried, "now tell me, has my 

child come hack to me ?" 

"My name indeed is Mary," said the stranger, 

sobbing wild ; 
" Will you be to me a mother? I am Mary < !ar- 

vin's child ! 

" She -leeps by wooded Simcoe, but on her dying 
day 



Let, for the once, a listening ear the working ■ She bade my father take me to her kinsfolk far 

hand beguile, away. 

And lend my old Provincial tale, as suits, a tear 

or smile ! 



The evening gun had sounded from gray Port 

Mary's walls ; 
Through the forest, like a wild beast, roared and 

plunged the Saco's falls. 

Anil westward on the sea-wind, that damp and 

gusty grew, 
Over cedars darkening inland the smokes of 

Spurwink blew. 

On the hearth of Parmer Garvin blazed the crack- 
ling walnut log ; 

Right and left sat dame and goodman, and be- 
tween them lay the dog, 

Head on paws, and tail slow wagging, and beside 

him on her mat. 
Sitting drowsy in the tire-light, winked and 

purred the mottled cat. 

"Twenty years !" said Goodman Garvin, speak- 
ing sadly, under breath, 

And his gray head slowly shaking, as one who 
speaks of death. 



" And when the priest besought her to do me no 

such wrong, 
She said, ' May God forgive me ! I have closed 

my heart too long. 

' 'When I hid me from my father, and shut out 
my mother's call, 
I sinned against those dear ones, and the Father 
of us all. 

" l Christ's love rebukes no home-love, breaks no 

tie of km apart ; 
Better heresy in doctrine, than heresy of heart. 

" ' Tell me not the Church must censure: she who 

wept the < Yoss beside 
Never made her own flesh strangers, nor the 

claims of blood denied ; 

" 'And if she who wronged her parents, wit : her 

child atones to the n, 
Earthly daughter, fi;i\ inly mother ! thou at 

least wilt not condemn ! ' 

."So, upon her death-bjd lying, my blessed 

mother spake ; 
As we come to do her bidi'ing, so receive us for 

her sake." 



MARY GATtVIN. 



149 




"It is Mary's self I see.' 



''God be praised!" said Goodwife Garvin, "He 

taketh, and he gives ; 
He woundeth, but he healeth ■ in her child our 

daughter lives ! " 

" Amen ! " the old man answered, as he brushed 
a tear away, 

And, kneeling by his hearthstone, said, with rev- 
erence, "Let us pray." 

All its Oriental symbols, and its Hebrew para- 
phrase, 

Warm with earnest life and feeling, rose his 
prayer of love and praise. 

But he started at beholding, as he rose from off 

his knee, 
The stranger cross his forehead with the sign of 

Papistrie. 

" What is this ? " cried Farmer Garvin. " Is an ' 

English Christian's home 
A chape] or a mass-house, that you make the 
sign of Rome ? " 

Then the young g'rl knelt beside him, kissed his 

trembling hand, and cried : 
" O, forbear t i chide my father ; in that faith my 

mother died ! 

" On her wooden cross at Simcoe the dews and 

sunshine fall, 
As they fall on Spi rwink's graveyard ; and the 

dear God watches all ! " 

The old man stroked the fair head that rested on 

his knee ; 
"Your words, dear child," he answered, "are 

God's rebuke to me. 



"Creed and right perchance may differ, yet our 

faith and hope be one. 
Let me be your father's father, let him be to me 

a son." 

When the horn, on Sabbath morning, through the 

still anil frosty air, 
From ^purwink, Pool, and Black Point, called to 

sermon ami to \ rayer, 

To the goodly house of worship, where, in order 

due ami lit, 
As by public vote directed, classed and ranked 

the people sit ; 

Mistress first and goodwife after, clerkly squire 

before the clown, 
From the brave coat, lace-embroidered, to the 

gray frock, shading down ; 

From the pulpit read the preacher, — "Goodman 

Garvin and his wife 
Fain would thank the Lord, whose kindness has 

followed them through life, 

"For the great and crowning mercy, that their 

daughter, from the wild, 
Where she rests (they hope in God's peace), has 

sent to them her child ; 

" And the prayers of all God's people they ask, 

that they may prove 
Xot unworthy, through their weakness, of such 

special proof of love." 

As the preacher prayed, uprising, the aged couple 
stood, 

And the fair Canadian also, in her modest maid- 
enhood. 



150 



MAUD MULLER. 



Thought the elders, grave and doubting, "She is 

Papist born and bred " ; 
Thought the young men, "'T is an angel in Mary 

Garvin's stead ! " 



MAUD MULLER. 

Maid Miller, on a summer's day, 
Raked the meadow sweet with hay. 

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth 
Of simple beauty and rustic health. 

Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee 
The mock-bird echoed from his tree. 

But when she glanced to the far-off town, 
White from its hill-slope looking down, 

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest 
And a nameless longing filled her breast,— • 

A wish, that she hardly dared to own, 
For something better than she had known. 



The Judge rode slowly down the lane, 
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane. 

He drew his bridle in the shade 

Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid, 

And asked a draught from the spring that flowed 
Through the meadow across the road. 

She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up, 
And filled fur him her small tin cup, 

And blushed as she gave it. looking down 
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown. 

" Thanks ! " said the Judge ; " a sweeter draught 
From a fairer hand was never quaffed." 

He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees, 
Of the singing birds and the humming bees; 

Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether 
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather. 

And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown, 
And her graceful ankles bare and brown ; 

And listened, while a pleased surprise 
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes. 




"Maud Muller looked and sighed ' 



MAUD MULLER.— THE RANGER. 



151 



At last, like one who for delay 
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away. 

Maud Midler looked and sighed : " Ah me ! 
That I the Judge's bride might be ! 

1 ' He would dress me up in silks so fine, 
And praise and toast me at his wine. 

" My father should wear a broadcloth coat; 
My brother should sail a painted boat. 

"I M dress my mother so grand and gay, 
And the baby should have a new toy each day. 

" And I 'd feed the hungry and clothe the pooi^ 
And all should bless me who left our door." 

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, 
And saw Maud M idler standing still. 

" A form more fair, a face more sweet, 
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet. 

" And her modest answer and graceful air 
Show her wise and good as she is fair. 

" Would she were mine, and I to-day, 
Like her, a harvester of hay : 

" No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, 
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues, 

" But low of cattle and song of birds, 
And health and quiet and loving words." 

But he thought of his sisters proud and cold, 
And his mother vain of her rank and gold. 

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, 
And Maud was left in the field alone. 

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, 
When he hummed in court an old love-tune ; 

And the young girl mused beside the well 
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell. 

He wedded a wife of richest dower, 
Who lived for fashion, as he for power. 

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, 
He watched a picture come and go ; 

And sweet Maud Midler's hazel eyes 
Looked out in their innocent surprise. 

Oft, when the wine in his glass was red, 
He longed for the wayside well instead ; 

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms 
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms. 

And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain, 
" Ah, that I were free again ! 

1 ' Free as when I rode that day, 

Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay." 

She wedded a man unlearned and poor. 
And many children played round her door. 

But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain, 
Left their traces on heart and brain. 

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot 
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot, 

And she heard the little spring brook fall 
Over the roadside, through the wall, 



In the shade of the apple-tree again 
She saw a rider draw his rein. 

And, gazing down with timid grace, 
She felt his pleased eyes read her face. 

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls 
Stretched away into stately halls ; 

The weary wheel to a spin net turned, 
The tallow candle an astral burned, 

And for him who sat by the chimney lug, 
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug, 

A manly form at her side she saw, 
And joy was duty and love was law. 

Then she took up her burden of life again, 
Saying only, " It might have been." 

Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, 

For rich repiner and household drudge ! 

God pity them both ! and pity us all, 
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall. 

For of all sad words of tongue or pen, 

The saddest are these ; " It might have been ! " 

Ah, well ! for us all some sweet hope lies 
Deeply buried from human eyes ; 

And, in the hereafter, angels may 
Roll the stone from its grave away ! 



THE RANGER. 

Robert Rawlin ! — Frosts were falling 
When the ranger's horn was calling 

Through the woods to Canada. 
Gone the winter's sleet and snowing, 
Gone the spring-time's bud and blowing, 
Gone the summer's harvest mowing, 

And again the fields are gray. 

Yet away, he 's away ! 
Faint and fainter hope is growing 

In the hearts that mourn his stay. 

Where the lion, crouching high on 
Abraham's rock with teeth of iron, 

Glares o'er wood and wave away, 
Faintly thence, as pines far sighing, 
Or as thunder spent and dying, 
Come the challenge and replying, 

Come the sounds of flight and fray. 

Well-a-day ! Hope and pray ! 
Some are living, some are lying 

In their red graves far away. 

Straggling rangers, worn with dangers, 
Homeward faring, weary strangers 

Pass the farm-gate on their way ; 
Tidings of the dead and living, 
Forest march and ambush, giving, 
Till the maidens leave their weaving, 

And the lads forget their play. 

" Still away, still away ! " 
Sighs a sad one, sick with grieving, 

" Why does Robert still delay ! " 

Nowhere fairer, sweeter, rarer, 
Does the golden-locked fruit-bearer 

Through his painted woodlands stray, 
Than where hillside oaks and beeches 
Overlook the long, blue reaches, 



152 



THE RANGER. 




" O'er wen 



Silver coves and pebbled beaches, 
And green isles of Casco Hay ; 
Nowhere day, for delay, 

With a tenderer look beseeches, 

" Let me with my charmed earth stay. 

On the grain-lands of the mainlands 
Stands the serried corn like train -bands, 

Plume and pennon rustling gay ; 

Out at sea, the islands w led, 

Silver birches, gel len-hooded, 
Set with maples, crimson-blooded, 

White sea-foam and sand-hills gray, 

Stretch away, far away. 
Dim and dreamy, over-brooded 

By the hazy autumn day. 

Gayly chattering to the clattering 

Of the brown nuts downward pattering, 

Leap the squirrels, ivd and gray. 
On the grass-land, on the fallow, 
Drop the apples, red and yellow ; 
Drop the russet pears and mellow, 

Drop the red leaves all the day, 

And away, swift away, 
Sun and cloud, o'er hill and hollow 

Chasing, weave their web of play. 

"Martha Mason, Martha Mason, 
Prithee tell us of the reason 

Why you mope at home to-day : 
Surely smiling is not sinning ; 
Leave your quilling, leave your spinning 
What is all your store of linen. 

If your heart is never gay ? 

Come away, come away ! 
Never yet did sad beginning 

Make the task of life a play." 

Overbending till she's blending 
With the flaxen skein she's tending 
Pale brown tresses smoothed away 
From her face of patient sorrow, 



Sits she, seeking but to borrow, 
Prom the trembling hope of morrow, 

Solace for the weary day. 

" Go your way, laugh and play ; 
Unto Him who heeds the sparrow 

And the lily, let me pray." 

" With our rally, rings the valley,— 
Join us ! " cried the blue eyed Nelly ; 

"Join us!" cried the laughing May, 
"To the beach we all are going, 
And, to save the task of rowing, 
West by north the wind is blowing, 

Blowing briskly down the bay ! 

Come away, come away ! 
Time and tide are swiftly flowing, 

Let us take them while we may ! 

" Never tell us that you'll tail us, 
Where the purple beach-plum mellows 

On the bluffs >o wild and gray. 
Hasten, for the oars are falling ; 
Hark, our merry mates are calling : 
Time it is that we were all in, 

Singing tideward down the bay ! " 

" Nay, nay, let me stay ; 
Sore and sail for Robert Rawlin 

Is my heart," she said, "to-day." 

"Vain your calling for Rob Rawlin ! 
Some red squaw his moose-meat 's broiling, 

Or some French lass, singing gay ; 
Just forget as he 's f 01 getting ; 
What avails a life of fretting V 
1 1 some stars must needs be setting, 

( )t hers rise as good as they." 

" < case, 1 pray ; go your way ! " 
Martha cries, her eyelids wetting: 

"Foul and false the words you say ! " 

" Martha Mason, hear to reason ! 
Prithee, put a kinder face on ! " 
" Cease to vex me," did she say; 



THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN. 



153 



' ' Better at his side be lying, 

With the mournful pine-trees sighing, 

And the wild birds o'er us crying, 

Than to doubt like mine a prey ; 

While away, far away. 
Turns my heart, forever trying 

Some new hope for each new day. 

"When the shadows veil the meadows, 
And the sunset's golden ladders 

.Sink from twilight's walls of gray, — 
From the window of my dreaming, 
I can see his sickle gleaming. 
Cherry- voiced, can hear him teaming 

Down the locust-shaded way ; 

But away, swift away, 
Fades the fond, delusive seeming, 

And I kneel again to pray. 

" When the growing dawn is showing, 
And the barn-yard cock is crowing, 
And the horned moon pales away : 
Prom a dream of him awaking, 
Every sound my heart is making 
Seems a footstep of his taking ; 



Then I hush the thought, and say, 
1 Nay, nay, he 's away ! ' 
Ah ! my heart, my heart is breaking 
For the dear one far away." 

Look up, Martha ! worn and swarthy, 
Glows a face of manhood worthy : 

"Robert ! " " Martha ! " all they say. 
O'er went wheel and reel together, 
Little cared the owner w hither ; 
Heart of lead is heart of feather, 

Noon of night is noon of day ! 

Come away, come away ! 
When such lovers meet each other, 

Why should prying idlers stay '! 

Quench the timber's fallen embers, 
Quench the red leaves in December's 

Hoary rime and chilly spray. 
But the hearth .shall kindle clearer, 
Household welcomes sound sincerer, 
Heart to loving heart draw nearer, 

When the bridal bells shall say : 

" Hope and pray, trust alway ; 
Life is sweeter, love is dearer, 

For the trial and delay ! " 



LATER POEMS. 



1856-'57. 



THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN. 



O'er the bare woods, whose out-stretched hands 

Plead with the leaden heavens in vain, 
I see, beyond the valley lands, 

The sea's long level dim with rain. 
Around me all things, stark and dumb, 
Seem praying for the snows to come, 
And, for the summer bloom and greenness gone, 
With winter's sunset lights and dazzling morn 
atone. 



Along the river's summer walk, 

The withered tufts of asters nod ; 
And trembles on its arid stalk 

The hoar plume of the golden-rod. 
And on a ground of sombre fir, 
And azure-studded juniper, 
The silver birch its buds of purple shows, 
And scarlet berries tell where bloomed the sweet 
wild-rose ! 



With mingled sound of horns and bells, 

A far-heard clang, the wild geese fly, 

Storm-sent, from Arctic moors and fells, 

Like a great arrow through the sky, 
Two dusky lines converged in one, 
Chasing the southward- flying sun ; 
While the brave snow-bird and the hardy jay 
Call to them from the pines, as if to bid them 
stay. 



I passed this way a year ago : 

The wind blew south ; the noon of day 
Was warm as June's ; and save that snow 

Flecked the low mountains far away, 
And that the vernal-seeming breeze 
Mocked faded grass and leafless trees, 
I might have dreamed of summer as I lay, 
Watching the fallen leaves with the soft wind at 
play. 



Since then, the winter blasts have piled 

The white pagodas of the snow 
On these rough slopes, and, strong and wild, 

.Yon river, in its overflow 
Of spring-time rain and sun, set free, 
Crashed with its ices to the sea ; 
And over these gray fields, then green and gold, 
The summer corn has waved, the thunder's organ 
rolled. 



Rich gift of God ! A year of time ! 

What pomp of rise and shut of day, 
What hues wherewith our Northern clime 

Makes autumn's dropping woodlands gay, 
What airs outblown from ferny dells. 
And clover-bloom and sweetbrier smells. 
What songs of brooks and birds, what fruits and 

flowers, 
Green woods and moonlit snows, have in its 
round been ours ! 



154 



THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN. 



I know not how, in other lands, 

Tin' changing seasons conic and go; 
What splendors fall on Syrian sands, 

What purple lights on Alpine snow ! 
Nor how the pomp of sunrise waits 
On Venice at her watery gates ; 
A. dream alone to me is Arno's vale, 
\nd >hc A lliain lira's halls are but a traveller's tale. 



Yet, on life's current, he who drifts 
Is one with him who rows or sails ; 
And he who wanders widest lifts 

No more of beauty's jealous veils 
Then he who from his doorway sees 
The miracle of flowers and trees, 
Feels the warm Orient in the noonday air, 
And from cloud minarets hears the sunset call to 
prayer ! 

IX. 

The eye may well be glad, that looks 

Where Pharpar's fountains rise and fall ; 
But he who sees his native brooks 

Laugh in the sun, has seen them all. 
The marble palaces of Ind 
Rise round him in the snow and wind ; 
From his lone sweetbrier Persian Hafiz smiles, 
And Rome's cathedral awe is in his woodland 
aisles. 



And thus it is my fancy blends 

The near at hand and far and rare ; 
And while the same horizon bends 

Above the silver-sprinkled hair 
Which flashed the light of morning skies 
On childhood's wonder-lifted eyes, 
Within its round of sea and sky and field, 
Earth wheels with all her zones, the Kosmos 
stands revealed. 



And thus the sick man on his bed, 

The toiler to his task-work bound, 
Behold their prison-walls outspread, 

Their clipped horizon widen round ! 
While freedom-giving fancy waits, 
Like Peter's angel at the gates, 
The power is theirs to baffle care and pain, 
To bring the lost world back, and make it theirs 
again ! 



What lack of goodly company, 

When masters of the ancient lyre 
Obey my call, and trace for me 

Their words of mingled tears and fire ! 
I talk with Bacon, grave and wise, 
I read the world with Pascal's eyes ; 
And priest and sage, with solemn brows austere, 
And poets, garland-bound, the Lords of Thought, 
draw near. 



Methinks, O friend, I hear thee say, 

"In vain the human heart we mock ; 
Bring living guests who love the day, 

Not ghosts who fly at crow of cock ! 
The herbs we share with flesh and blood, 
Are better than ambrosial food, 
With laurelled shades." I grant it, nothing loath, 
But doubly blest is he who can partake of both. 



He who might Plato's banquet grace, 

Have I not seen before me sit, 
And watched his puritanic face, 

With more than Eastern wisdom lit? 
Shrewd mystic ! who, upon the back 
Of his Poor Richard's Almanack, 
Writing the Sufi's song, the Gentoo's dream, 
Links Menu's age of thought to Fulton's age of 
steam ! 



Here too, of answering love secure, 

Have I not welcomed to my hearth 
The gentle pilgrim troubadour, 

Whose songs have girdled half the earth ; 
Whose- pages, like the magic mat 
Whereon the Eastern lover sat, 
Have borne me over Rhine-land's purple vines, 
And Nubia's tawny sands, and Phrygia's moun- 
tain pines ! 



And he, who to the lettered wealth 

Of ages adds the lore unpriced, 
The wisdom and the moral health, 

The ethics of the school of Christ ; 
The statesman to his holy trust, 
As the Athenian archon, just, 
Struck down, exiled like him for truth alone, 
Has he not graced my home with beauty all his 
own ? 



What greetings smile, what farewells wave, 

What loved ones enter and depart ! 
The good, the beautiful, the brave, 

The Heaven -lent treasures of the heart ! 
How conscious seems the frozen sod 
And beechen slope whereon they trod ! 
The oak-leaves rustle, and the dry grass bends 
Beneath the shadowy feet of lost or absent friends. 



Then ask not why to these bleak hills 

I cling, as clings the tufted moss, 
To bear the winter's lingering chills, 

The mocking spring's perpetual loss. 
I dream of lands where summer smiles, 
And soft winds blow from spicy isles, 
But scarce would Ceylon's breath of flowers be 

sweet, 
Coidd I not feel thy soil, New England, at my 
feet! 



At times I long for gentler skies, 

And bathe in dreams of softer air, 
But homesick tears would fill the eyes 

That saw the Cross without the Bear. 
The pine must whisper to the palm, 
The north-wind break the tropic calm ; 
And with the dreamy languor of the Line, 
The North's keen virtue blend, and strength to 
beauty join. 



Better to stem with heart and hand 
The roaring tide of life, than lie, 
Unmindful, on its flowery strand, 
Of God's occasions drifting by ! 
Better with naked nerve to bear 
The needles of this goading air, 
Than, in the lap of sensual ease, forego 
The godlike power to do, the godlike aim to know. 



LAST WALKS IN AUTUMN. 



155 




'•And I, who watch them through the frosty pane." 



Home of my heart ! to me more fair 

Than gay Versailles or Windsor' shalls, 
The painted, shingly town-house where 
The freeman's vote for Freedom falls ! 
The simple roof where prayer is made, 
Than Gothic groin and colonnade ; 
The living temple of the heart of man, 
Than Rome's sky -mocking vault, or many-spired 
Milan ! 



More dear thy equal village schools, 

Where rich and poor the Bible read, 
Than classic halls where Priestcraft rules, 

And Learning wears the chains of Creed : 
Thy glad Thanksgiving, gathering in 
The scattered sheaves of home and kin, • 
Than the mad license following Lenten pains, 
Or holidays of slaves who laugh and dance in 
chains. 



And sweet homes nestle in these dale«. 

And perch along these wooded swells ; 
And, blest beyond Arcadian vales, 

They hear the sound of Sabbath bells ! 
Here dwells no perfect man sublime, 
Nor woman winged before her time, 
But with the faults and follies of the race, 
Old home-bred virtues held their not unhonored 
place. 



Here manhood struggles for the sake 

Of mother, sister, daughter, wife. 
The graces and the loves which make 

The music of the march of life ; 
And woman, in her daily round 
Of duty, walks on holy ground. 
No unpaid menial tills the soil, nor here 
Is the bad lesson learned at human rights to sneer. 



Then let the icy north-wind blow 

The trumpets of the coming storm, 
To arrowy sleet and blinding snow 

Yon slanting lines of rain transform. 
Young hearts shall hail the drifted cold, 
As gayly as I did of old ; 
And I, who watch them through the frosty pane, 
Unenvious, live in them my boyhood o'er again. 



And I will trust that He who heeds 

The life that hides in mead and wold, 
Who hangs yon alder's crimson beads, 

And stains these mosses green and gold, 
Will still, as He hath done, incline 
His gracious care to me and mine ; 
Grant what we ask aright, from wrong debar, 
And, as the earth grows dark, make brighter 
every star ! 



I have not seen, I may not see, 

My hopes for man take form in act, 
But God will give the victory 

In due time ; in that faith I act. 
And he who sees the future sure, 
The baffling present may endure, 
And bless, meanwhile, the unseen Hand that 

leads 
The heart's desires beyond the halting step of 
deeds. 



And thou, my song, I send thee forth, 

Where harsher songs of mine have flown ; 
Go, find a place at home and hearth 

Where'er thy singer's name is known ; 
Revive for him the kindly thought 
Of friends ; and they who love him not, 
Touched by some strain of thine, perchance may 

take 
The hand he proffers all, and thank him for thy 
sake. 



156 THE MAYFLOWERS.— BURIAL OF BARBOUR.— TO PENNSYLVANIA. 



THE MAYFLOWERS. 

The trailing arbutus, or rows abundantly 

in the vicinity of Plymouth, and was the first flower that 
greeted the Pilgrims after their fearful u into r. 

Sab Mayflower ! watched by winter stars, 

And nursed by winter gales, 

With petals of the sleeted spars, 

And leaves of frozen sails ! 

What had she in those dreary hours, 

Within her ice-rimmed bay, 
In common with the wild-wood flowers, 

The first sweet smiles of May ? 

Yet, " God be praised ! " the Pilgrim said, 

Who saw the blossoms peer 
Above the brown leaves, dry and dead, 

" Behold our Mayflower here ! " 

" God wills it : here our rest shall be, 

Our years of wandering o'er. 
For us the Mayflower of the sea 

Shall spread her sails no more." 

O sacred flowers of faith and hope, 

As sweetly now as then 
Ye bloom on many a birchen slope, 

In many a pine-dark glen. 

Behind the sea-wall's rugged length, 

Unchanged, your leaves unfold, 
Like love behind the manly strength 
'Of the brave hearts of old. 

So live the fathers in their sons, 

Their sturdy faith be ours, 
And ours the love that overruns 

Its rocky strength with flowers. 

The Pilgrim's wild and wintry day 

Its shadow round ns draws ; 
The Mayflower of his stormy bay, 

Our Freedom's struggling cause. 

But warmer suns erelong shall bring 

To life the frozen sod; 
And, through dead leaves of hope, shall spring 

Afresh the flowers of God ! 



BURIAL OF BARBOUR. 

Bear him, comrades, to his grave ; 
Never over one more brave 

Shall the prairie grasses weep, 
In the ages yet to come, 
When the millions in our room, 

What we sow in tears, shall reap. 

Bear him up the icy hill, 
With the Kansas, frozen still 

As his noble heart, below, 
And the land he came to fill 
With a fireman's thews and will, 

And his poor hut roofed with snow ! 

One more look of that dead face, 
Of bis murder's ghastly trace ! 

One more kiss, widowed one! 
Laj your left hands on his brow, 
Lift your right, hands up, and vow 

That his work shall yet be done. 



Patience, friends ! The eye of God 
Every path by Murder trod , 

Watches, lidhss, day and night; 
And the dead man in his shroud, 
And his widow weeping loud, 

And our hearts, -are in his sight. 

Every deadly threat that swells 
With the roar of gambling hells, 

Every brutal jest and jeer, 
Every wicked thought and plan 
Of the cruel heart of man, 

Though but whispered, He can hear ! 

We in suffering, they in crime, 
Wait the just award of time, 

Wait the vengeance that is due ; 
Not in vain a heart shall break, 
Not a tear for Freedom's sake 

Fall unheeded : God is true. 

While the flag with stars bedecked 
Threatens where it should protect, 

And the Law shakes hands with Crime, 
What is left us but to wait, 
Match our patience to our fate, 

And abide the better time? 

Patience, friends ! The human heart 
Everywhere shall take our part, 

Everywhere for us shall pray ; 
On our side are nature's laws, 
And God's life is in the cause 

That we suffer for to-day. 

Well to suffer is divine ; 

Pass the watchword down the line, 

Pass the countersign : " Enduke." 
Not to him who rashly dares, 
But to him who nobly bears, 

Is the victor's garland sure. 

Frozen earth to frozen breast, 
Lay our slain one clown to rest ; 

Lay him down in hope and faith, 
And above the broken sod. 
Once again, to Freedom's God, 

Pledge ourselves for life or death. 

That the State whose walls we lay, 
In our blood and tears, to-day, 

Shall be free from bonds of shame 
And our goodly land untrod 
By the feet of Slavery, shod 

With cursing as with flame ! 

Plant the Buckeye on his grave, 
For the hunter of the slave 

In its shadow cannot rest ; 
And let martyr mound and tree 
Be our pledge and guaranty 

Of the freedom of the West ! 



TO PENNSYLVANIA. 

O State prayer-founded ! never hung 
Such choice upon a people's tongue, 

Such power to bless or ban, 
As that which makes thy whisper Fate, 
For which on thee the centuries wait. 

And destinies of man ! 

Across thy Alleghanian chain, 
With groanings from a land in pain, 

The wist wind find its way; 
Wild-wailing from Missouri's flood 
The crying of thy children's blood 

Is in thy ears to-day ! 



THE PASS OF THE SIERRA. 



157 





■Up, men !" he cried, "yon rocky cone, 
To-day, please God, we'll pass." 



And unto thee in Freedom's hour 
Of sorest need God gives the power 

To ruin or to save ; 
To wound or heal, to blight or bless 
With fertile field or wilderness, 

A free home or a grave ! 

Then let thy virtue match the crime, 
Rise to a level with the time ; 

And, if a son of thine 
Betray or tempt thee, Brutus-like 
For Fatherland and Freedom strike 

As Justice gives the sign. 

Wake, sleeper, from thy dream of ease, 
The great occasion's forelock seize ; 

And, let the north-wind strong, 
And golden haves of autumn, be 
Thy coronal of Victory 

And thy triumphal song. 

10th mo., 1856. 



THE PASS OF THE SIERRA. 

All night above their rocky bed 
They saw the stars march slow ;■ 

The wild Sierra overhead, 
The desert's death below. 

The Indian from his lodge of bark, 

The gray bear from his den, 
Beyond their camp-fire's wall of dark, 

Glared on the mountain men. 

Still upward turned, with anxious strain, 

Their leader's sleepless eye, 
Where splinters of the mountain chain 

.Stood back against the sky. 



The night waned slow : at last, a glow, 

A gleam of sudden fire, 
Shot up behind the walls of snow, 

And tipped each icy spire. 

" Up, men ! " he cried, "yon rocky cone, 
To-day, please God, we '11 pass, 

And look from Winter's frozen throne 
On Summer's flowers and grass ! " 

They set their faces to the blast, 

They trod the eternal snow, 
And faint, worn, bleeding, hailed at last 

The promised land below. 

Behind, they saw the snow-cloud tossed 

By many an icy horn ; 
Before, warm valleys, wood-embossed, 

And green with vines and corn. 

They left the Winter at their backs 

To flap his baffled wing, 
And downward, with the cataracts, 

Leaped to the lap of Spring. 

Strong leader of that mountain band, 

Another task remains, 
To break from Slavery's desert land 

A path to Freedom's plains. 

The winds are wild, the way is drear, 
Yet, flashing through the night, 

Lo ! icy ridge and rocky spear 
Blaze out in morning light ! 

Rise up, Fremont ! and go before ; 

The Hour must have its Man ; 
Put on the hunting-shirt once more, 

And lead in Freedom's van ! 

Sthmo., 1S56. 



158 



THE CONQUEST OF FINLAND.— A LAY OF OLD TIME. 



THE CONQUEST OF FINLAND. 66 

Across the frozen marshes 

The winds of aul mini blow, 
Ami the fen-lands of the Wetter 

Arc white with early .snow. 

But whirr the low, gray headlands 

Look o'er the Baltic brine, 
A bark is sailing in the track 

Of England's battle line. 

No wares hath she to barter 
For Bothnia's fish and grain ; 

She saileth not for pleasure, 
She saileth not lor gain. 

lint still by isle or mainland 

She drops her anchor down, 
Where'er the British cannon 

Rained lire on tower and town. 

Outspake the ancient Amtman, 

At the gate of Helsingfors : 
"Why comes this ship a-spying 

In the track of England's wars ? " 

"God bless her," said the coast-guard, — 

' ' God bless the ship, I say . 
The holy angels trim the sails 

That speed her on her way ! 

" Where'er she drops her anchor, 

The peasant's heart is glad ; 
Where'er she spreads her parting sail, 

The peasant's heart is sad. 

"Each wasted town and hamlet 

She visits to restore ; 
To roof the shattered cabin, 

And feed the starving poor. 

" The sunken boats of fishers, 
The foraged beeves and grain, 

The spoil of flake and storehouse, 
The good ship brings again. 

"And so to Finland's sorrow 

The sweet amend is made, 
As if the healing hand of Christ 

Upon her wounds were laid ! " 

Then said the gray old Amtman, 

" The will of God be done ! 
The battle lost by England's hate, 

By England's love is won ! 

" We braved the iron tempest 
That thundered on our shore ; 

But when did kindness fail to find 
The key to Finland's door ? 

"No more from Aland's ramparts 

Shall warning signal come, 
Nor startled Sweaborg hear again 

The roll of midnight drum. 

" Beside our fierce Black Eagle 
The Dove of Peace shall rest ; 

And in the mouths of cannon 
The sea-bird make her nest . 

"For Finland, looking seaward, 

No coming foe shall scan ; 
And the holy bells of Abo 

Shall ring, ' Good-will to man ! ' 



' ' Then row thy boat, O fisher ! 

In peace on lake and bay ; 
And thou, young maiden, dance again 

Around the poles of May ! 

Sit down, old men, together, 
( Mil wives, in quiet spin ; 
I [enceforth the Anglo-Saxon 
Is the brother of the Finn ! " 



A LAY OF OLD TIME. 

WRITTEN FORT HE ESSEX COUNTY ACKICULTUKA 
FAIR 

One morning of the first sad Fall, 
Poor Adam and his bride 

Sat in the shade of Eden's wall- 
But on the outer side. 

She, blushing in her fig-leaf suit 

For the chaste garb of old ; 
He, sighing o'er his bitter fruit 

For Eden's drupes of gold. 

Behind them, smiling in the morn, 

Their forfeit garden lay, 
Before them, wild with rock and thorn, 

The desert stretched away. 

They heard the air above them fanned, 

A light step on the sward, 
And lo ! they saw before them stand 

The angel of the Lord ! 

" Arise," he said, " why look behind, 

When hope is all before, 
And patient hand and willing mind, 

Your loss may yet restore ? 

" I leave with you a spell whose power 

Can make the desert glad, 
And call around you fruit and flower 

As fair as Eden had . 

"I clothe your hands with power to lift 

The curse from off your soil ; 
Your very doom shall seem a gift, 

Your loss a gain through Toil. 

"Go, cheerful as yon humming-bees, 

To labor as to play." 
White glimmering over Eden's trees 

The angel passed away. 

The pilgrims of the world went forth 

Obedient to the word, 
And found where'er they tilled the earth 

A garden of the Lord ! 

The thorn-tree cast its evil fruit 
And blushed with plum and pear, 

And seeded grass and trodden root 
Grew sweet beneath their care. 

We share our primal parents' fate, 

And in our turn and day, 
Look back on Eden's sworded gate 

As sail and lost as they. 

But still for us his native skies 

The pitying Angel leaves. 
And leads through Toil to Paradise: 

New Adams and new Eves ! 



WHAT OF THE DAY?— THE FIRST FLOWERS.— MY NAMESAKE. 



159 



WHAT OF THE DAY? 

A SOUND of tumult troubles all the air, 

Like the low thunders of a sultry sky 
Far-rolling ere the downright lightnings glare ; 

The hills blaze red with warnings ; foes draw 
nigh, 

Treading the dark with challenge and reply. 
Behold the burden of the prophet's vision,— 
The gathering hosts, — the Valley of Decision, 

Dusk with the wings of eagles wheeling o'er. 
Day of the Lord, of darkness and not light ! 

It breaks in thunder and the whirlwind's roar! 
Even so, Father ! L t Thy will be done, — 
Turn and o'erturn, end what Thou hast begun 
In judgment or in mercy: as for me, 
If but the least and frailest, let me be 
Evermore numbered with the truly free 
Who find Thy service perfect liberty! 
I fain would thank Thee that my mortal life 

Has reached the honr (albeit through care and 
pain) 
When Good and Evil, as for final strife, 

Close dim and vast on Armageddon's plain ; 
And Michael and his angels once again 

Drive howling back the Spirits of the Night. 
O for the faith to read the signs aright 
And, from the angle of thy perfect sight. 

See Truth's white banner floating on before ; 

And the Good Cause, despite of venal friends, 

And base expedients, move to noble ends; 

See Peace with Freedom make to Time 
amends, 
And, through its cloud of dust, the threshing- 
floor, 

Flailed by the thunder, heaped with chaffless 
grain ! 

1857. 



THE FIRST FLOWERS. 

For ages on our river borders, 
These tassels in their tawny bloom. 

And willowy studs of downy silver, 
Have prophesied of Spring to come. 

For ages have the unbound waters 
Smiled on them from their pebbly hem, 

And the clear carol of the robin 
And song of bluebird welcomed them. 

But never yet from smiling river, 
Or song of early bird, have they 

Been greeted with a gladder welcome 
Than whispers from my heart to-day. 

They break the spell of cold and darkness, 
The weary watch of sleepless pain ; 

And from my heart, as from the river, 
The ice of winter melts again. 

Thanks, Mary ! for this wild-wood token 
Of Freya's footsteps drawing near ; 

Almost, as in the rune of Asgard, 
The growing of the grass I hear. 

It is as if the pine-trees called me 
From ceiled room and silent books, 

To see the dance of woodland shadows, 
And hear the song of April brooks ! 

As in the old Teutonic ballad 

Live singing bird and flowering tree, 

Together live in bloom and music, 
I blend in song thy flowers and thee. 

Earth's rocky tablets bear forever 

The dint of rain and sanall bird's track : 



Who knows but that my idle verses 
May leave some trace by Merrimack ! 

The bird that trod the mellow layers 
Of the young earth is sought in vain ; 

The cloud is gone that wove the sandstone, 
From God's design, with threads of rain ! 

So, when this fluid age we live in 

Shall stiffen round my careless rhyme, 

Who made the vagrant tracks may puzzle 
The savans of the coming time : 

Am!, following out their dim suggestions, 
Some idly-curious hand may draw 

My doubtful portraiture, as cuvier 
Drew fish and bird from fin and claw. 

And maidens in the far-off twilights, 
Singing my words to breeze and stream, 

Shall wonder if the old-time Mary- 
Were real, or the rhymer's dream ! 

1st 3d mo., 1857. 



MY NAMESAKE. 

You scarcely need my tardy thanks, 
Who, self-rewarded, nurse and tend — 

A green leaf on your own Green Banks — 
The memory of your friend. 

For me, no wreath, bloom-woven hides 
The sobered brow and lessening hair : 

For aught I know, the myrtled sides 
Of Helicon are bare. 

Their scallop-shells so many bring 

The fabled founts of song to try, 
They '.ve drained, for aught I know, the spring 

Of Aganippe dry. 

Ah well ! — -The wreath the Muses braid 
Proves often Folly's cap and bell ; 

Methinks, my ample beaver's shade 
May serve my turn as well. 

Let Love's and Friendship's tender debt 

Be paid by those 1 love in life. 
Why should the unborn critic whet 

For me his scalping-knife ? 

Why should the stranger peer and pry 

One's vacant house of life about, 
And drag for curious ear and eye 

His faults and follies out ? — 

Why stuff, for fools to gaze upon, 
With chaff of words, the garb he wore, 

As coi n-husks when the ear is gone 
Are rustled all the more ? 

Let kindly Silence clos'e again, 

The picture vanish from the eye, 
And on the dim and misty main 

Let the small ripple die. 

Yet not the less I own your claim 

To grateful thanks, dear friends of mine, 

Hang, if it please you so, my name 
Upon your household line. 

Let Fame from brazen lips blow wide 

Her chosen names, I envy none : 
A mother's love, a father's pride, 

Shall keep alive my own ! 

Still shall that name as now recall 

The young leaf wet with morning dew, 

The glory where the sunbeams fall 
The breezy woodlands through. 



160 



MY NAMESAKE. 



That name shall be a household word, 
A spell to waken smile or sigh ; 

In many an ei erring praj er be heard 
And cradle Lullabj . 

And thou, dear child, in riper days 
When asked the reason of thy name, 

Shalt answer : "One't were vain to praise 
Or censure horc the same. 

"Some blamed him, somebelieved him good, 
The truth lav doubtless 'twixt the two, — 

I le reconciled as lies) he could 
( )ld faith and fancies new. 

" In him the grave and playful mixed, 

And wisdom held with folly truce, 
And Nature compromised betwixt 
Good fellow and recluse. 

"He loved his friends, forgave his foes; 

And, if his words were harsh at times, 
He spared his fellow-men,— his blows 

Fell only on their crimes. 

" Ih loved the good and wise, but found 

His human heart to all akin 
'Who met him on the common ground 

Of suffering and of sin. 

"Whate'er his neighbors might endure 
Of pain or grief his own became ; 

For all the ills he could not cure 
He held himself to blame. 

" His good was mainly an intent, 
His evil not of forethought done ; 

The work he wrought was rarely meant 
Or finished as begun. . 

" 111 served his tides of feeling strong 
To turn the common mills of use ; 

And, over restless wings of song, 
His birthright garb hung loose ! 

"His eye was beauty's powerless slave, 
And his the ear which discord pains : 

Few guessed beneath his aspect grave 
What passions strove in chains. 

"He had his share of care and pain, 

No holiday was life to him; 
Still in the heirloom cup we chain 

The bitter drop will swim. 

"Yet Heaven was kind, and hsre a bird 
And there a flower beguiled his way ; 

And, cool, in summer noons, he heard 
The fountains plash and play. 

" On all his sad or restless moods 
The patient peace of Nature stole ; 

The quiet of the fields and woods 
Sank deep into his soul. 

" He worshipped as his fathers did, 
And kept the faith of childish days, 

And, howsoe'er he strayed or slid, 
He loved the good old ways. 

"The simple tastes, the kindly traits, 
The tranquil air, and gentle speech, 

The silence of the soul that waits 
For more than man to teach. 

" The cant of party, school, and sect, 
Provoked at times his honest scorn, 

And Folly, in its gray respect, 
He tossed on satire's horn. 



"' But still his heart was full of awe 
And reverence for all sacred things ; 

And, brooding over form and law, 
He saw the Spirit's wings ! 

•' bile's mystery wrapt him like a cloud; 

lie heard far voices mock his own, 
The sweep of wings unseen, the loud, 

Long roll of waves unknown. 

"The arrows of his straining sight 
Fell quenched in darkn ss ; | riest and sage, 

Like lost guides calling left and right, 
Perplexed his doubtful age. 

"Like childhood, listening for the sound 
Of its dropped pebbles in the well, 

All vainly down the dark profound 
His brief -lined plummet fell. 

"So, scattering flowers with pious pains 

On old beliefs, of later creeds, 
Which claimed a place in Truth's domains, 

He asked the title-deeds 

" He saw the old-time's groves and shrines 
In the long distance fair and dim ; 

And heard, like sound of far-off pines,, 
The century-mellowed hymn ! 

"He dared not mock the Dervish whirl, 
The Brahmin's rite, the Lama's spell ; 

God knew the heart ; Devotion's pearl 
Might sanctify the shell. 

" While others trod the altar stairs 

He faltered like the publican ; 
And, while they praised as saints, his prayers 

Were those of sinful man. 

"For, awed by Sinai's Mount of Law, 
The trembling faith alone sufficed, 

That, through its cloud and flame, he saw 
The sweet, sad face of Christ ! — 

' ' And listening, with his forehead bow.ed, 

Heard the Divine compassion fill 
The pauses of the trump and cloud 

With whispers small and still. 

"The words he spake, the thoughts he penned, 
Are mortal as his hand and brain, 

But, if they served the Master's end, 
He has not lived in vain ! " 

Heaven make thee better than thy name, 
Child of my friends ! — For thee I crave 

What riches never bought, nor fame 
To mortal longing gave. 

I pray the prayer of Plato old : 

God make thee beautiful within, 
And let thine eyes the good behold 

In everything save sin ! 

Imagination held in check 

To serve, not rule, thy poised mind ; 
Thy Reason, at the frown or beck 

Of Conscience, loose or bind. 

No dreamer thou, but real all, — 

Strong manhood crowning vigorous youth ; 
Life made by duty epical 

And rhythmic with the truth. 

So shall that life the fruitage yield 

Which trees of healing only give, 
And green-leafed in the Eternal field 

Of God, forever live 



THE WITCH'S DAUGHTER. 



161 



HOME BALLADS. 

I860. 



I CALL the old time back . I bring these lays 
To thee, in memory of the summer days 
When, by our native streams and forest ways, 

We dreamed them over ; while the rivulets made 
Songs of their own, and the great pine-trees laid 
On warm noon-lights the masses of their shade. 

And she was with us, living o'er again 

Her life in ours, despite of years and pain, — 

The autumn's brightness after latter rain. 

Beautiful in her holy peace as one 

Who stands, at evening, when the work is done, 

Glorified in the setting of the sun ! 

Her memory makes our common landscape seem 
Fairer than any of which painters dream, 
Lights the brown hills and sings in every stream ; 

For she whose speech was always truth's pure 

gold 
Heard, not unpleased, its simple legends told 
And loved with us the beautiful and old. 



THE WITCH'S DAUGHTER. 

It was the pleasant harvest time, 
When cellar-bins are closely stowed, 
And garrets bend beneath their load, 

And the old swallow-haunted barns — 
Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams 
Through which the moted sunlight streams, 

And winds blow freshly in, to shake 
The red plumes of the roosted cocks. 
And the loose hay -mow's scented locks — 

Are filled with summer's ripened stores, 
Its odorous grass and barley sheaves, 
From their low scaffolds to their eaves. 

On Esek Harden's oaken floor, 
With many an autumn threshing worn, 
Lay the heaped ears of unhusked corn. 

And thither came young men and maids, 
Beneath a moon that, large and low, 
Lit that sweet eve of long ago. 

They took their places ; some by chance, 
And others by a merry voice 
Or sweet smile guided to their choice. 

How pleasantly the rising moon, 
Between the shadow of the mows, 
Looked on them through the great elm- 
boughs ! — 

On sturdy boyhood sun-embrowned, 
On girlhood with its solid curves 
Of healthful strength and painless nerves ! 

And jests went round, and laughs that made 
The house-dog answer with his howd, 
And kept astir the barn-yard fowl ; 

11 



A ii' I quaint old songs their fathers sung,, 
In Derby dales and Yorkshire moors, 
Ere Norman William trod their shores ; 

And tales, whose meiry lie >nse shook 
The fat sides of the Saxon thane, 
Forgetful of the hovering Dane ! 

But still the sweetest voice was mute 
That river-valley ever heard 
From lip of maid or throat of bird ; 

For Mabel Martin sat apart, 
And let the hay-mow's shadow fall 
Upon the loveliest face of all. 

She sat apart, as one forbid, 

Who knew that none would condescend 
To own the Witch-wife's child a friend. 

The seasons scarce had gone their round, 
Since curious thousands thronged to see 
Her mother on the gallows-tree ; 

And mocked the palsied limbs of age, 
That faltered on the fatal stairs, 
And wan lip trembling with its prayers. ! 

Few questioned of the sorrowing child,, 
Or, when they saw the mother die, 
Dreamed of the daughter's agony. 

They went up to their homes that day, 
As men and Christians justified : 
God willed it, and the wretch had- died-! 

Dear God and Father of us all, 
Forgive oi r faith in cruel lies, — 
Forgive the blindness that denies !! 

Forgive Thy creature when he takes,, 
For the all-perfect love Thou art, 
Some grim creation of his heart. 

Cast down our idols, overturn 
Our bloody altars ; let us see 
Thyself in thy humanity ! 

Poor Mabel from her mother's grave 
Crept to her desolate hearth-stone, 
And wrestled with her fate alone ; 

With love, and anger, and despair, 
The phantoms of disordered sense, 
The awful doubts of Providence ! 

The school-boys jeered her as they passed, 
And, when she sought the house of prayer,, 
Her mother's curse pursued her there. 

And still o'er many a neighboring door 
She saw the horseshoe's curved charm, 
To guard against her mother's harm ; — 

That mother, poor, and sick, and lame, 
Who daily, by the old arm-chair, 
Folded her withered hands in prayer ; — 

Who turned, in Salem's dreary jail, 
Her worn old Bible o'er ami o'er, 
When her dim eyes could read no more ! 



162 



THE WITCH'S DAUGHTER. 




LL 



••So in the shadow Maoel sits; 

Untouched by mirth she sees and hears, 
Her Bmile is .sadder than her tears." 



Sore tried and pained, the poor girl kept 
Her faith, and trusted that her way, 
So dark, would somewhere meet the day. 

And still her weary wheel went round 
Day after day, with no relief ; 
Small leisure have the poor for grief. 

So in the shadow Mable sits ; 

Untouched by mirth she sees and hears, 
Her smile is sadder than her tears. 

But cruel eyes have found her out, 
And cruel lips repeat her name, 
And taunt her with her mother's shame. 

She answered not with railing words, 
But drew her apron o'er her face, 
And, sobbing, glided from the place. 

And only pausing at the door. 
Her sad eyes met the troubled gaze 
Of one who, in her better days, 

Had been her warm and steady friend, 
Ere yet her mother's doom had made 
Even Esek Harden half afraid. 

He felt that mute appeal of tears, 
And, starting, with an angry frown 
Hushed all the wicked murmurs down. 

"Good neighbors mine," he sternly said, 
" This passes harmless mirth or jest; 
I brook no insult to my guest. 

" She is indeed her mother's child ; 
But God's sweet pity ministers 
Unto no whiter soul than hers. 

" Let G ly Martin rest in peace; 

i never knew her harm a fly, 

And witch or not,, God knows, — not I. 

" I know who swore her life away ; 
And, as God lives, I 'd nut condemn 
An Indian dog on word of them. " 

The broadest lands in all the town, 
The skill to guide, the power to awe, 
Were Harden's ; and his word was law. 



None dared withstand him to his face, 
But one sly maiden spake aside : 
" The little witch is evil-eyed ! 

" Her mother only killed a cow, 
Or witched a churn or dairy-pan ; 
But she, forsooth, must charm a man ! " 

Poor Mabel, in her lonely home. 
Sat by the window's narrow pane, 
White in the moonlight's silver rain. 

The river, on its pebbled rim, 

Made music such as childhood knew ; 
The door-yard tree was whispered through 

By voices such as childhood's ear 
Had heard in moonlights long ago ; 
And through the willow-boughs below 

She saw the rippled waters shine ; 
Beyond, in waves of shade and light 
The hills rolled off into the night. 

Sweet sounds and pictures mocking so 
The sadness of her human lot, 
She saw and heard, but heeded not. 

She strove to drown her sense of wrong, 
And, in her old and simple way, 
To teach her bitter heart to pray. 

Poor child ! the prayer, begun in faith, 
Grew to a low, despairing cry 
Of utter misery : " Let me die ! 

" Oh ! take me from the scornful eyes, 
And hide me where the cruel speech 
And mocking linger may not reach ! 

" 1 dare not breathe my mother's name : 
A daughter's right I dare not crave 
To weep above her unblest grave ! 

" Lpt me not live until my heart, 
With few to pity, and with none 
To love me, hardens into stone. 

" O God ! have mercy on thy child, 
Whose faith in Thee grows weak and small, 
And take me ere I lose it all ! " 



THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN. 



163 



A shadow on the moonlight fell. 

And murmuring wind and wave became 
A voice whose burden was her name. 

Had then God heard her '? Had he sent 
His angel down ? In flesh and blood, 
Before her Esek Harden stood ! 

He laid his hand upon her arm : 

"Dear Mabel, this no more shall be; 
"Who seoll's at you, must scoff at mc. 

" You know rough Esek Harden well ; 
And if he seems no suitor gay. 
And if his hair is touched with gray, 

" The maiden grown shall never find 
His heart less warm than when she smiled, 
Upon his knees, a little child ! " 

Her tears of grief were tears of joy, 
As, folded in his strong embrace, 
She looked in Esek Harden' s face. 

" O truest friend of all ! " she said, 

"God bless you for your kindly thought, 
And make me worthy of my lot ! " 

He led her through his dewy fields, 

To where the swinging lanterns glowed, 
And through the doors the huskers showed. 

'•Good friends and neighbors ! " Esek said, 
" I 'm weary of this lonely life ; 
In Mabel see my chosen wife ! 

" She greets you kindly, one and all ; 
The past is past, and all offence 
Falls harmless from her innocence. 

" Henceforth she stands no more alone ; 
You know what Esek Harden is : — 
He brooks no wrong to him or his. " 

Now let the merriest tales be told, 
And let the sweetest songs be sung 
That ever made the old heart young ! 

For now the lost has found a home ; 
And a lone hearth shall brighter bum, 
As all the household joys return ! 

O, pleasantly the harvest-moon, 
Between the shadow of the mows, 
Looked on them through the great elm-boughs ! 

On Mabel's curls of golden hair, 
On Esek's shaggy strength it fell ; 
And the wind whispered, " It is well ! " 



THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN. 

From the hills "f home forth looking, far beneath 

the tent-like span 
Of the sky, I see the white gleam of the headland 

of Cape Ann. 
Well I know its coves and beaches to the ebb-tide 

glimmering down, 
And the white-walled hamlet children of its 

ancient fishing-town. 

Long has passed the summer morning, and its 

memory waxes old, 
When along yon breezy headlands with a pleasant 

friend I strolled. 



Ah ! the autumn sun is shining, and the ocean 

wind blows cool, 
And the golden-rod and aster bloom around thy 

grave, Rantoul ! 

With the memory of that morning by the summer 

sea I blend 
A wild and wondrous story, by the younger 

Mather penned, 
In that quaint Magnolia Christi, with all strange 

and marvellous things, 
Heaped up huge and undigested, like the chaos 

Ovid sings. 

Dear to me these far, faint glimpses of the dual 

life of old, 
Inward, grand with awe and reverence ; outward, 

mean and coarse and cold ; 
Gleams of mystic beauty playing over dull and 

vulgar clay, 
Golden-threaded fancies weaving in a web of 

hodden gray. 

The great eventful Present hides the Past; but 
through the din 

Of its loud life hints and echoes from the life be- 
hind steal in ; 

And the lore of home and fireside, and the legen- 
dary rhyme, 

Make the .task of duty lighter which the true man 
owes his time. 

So, with something of the feeling which the Cov- 
enanter knew, 

When with pious chisel wandering Scotland's 
moorland graveyards through, 

From the graves of old traditions I part the 
blackberry-vines, 

Wipe the moss from off the headstones, and re- 
touch the faded lines. 



Where the sea-waves back and forward, hoarse 
with rolling pebbles, ran, 

The garrison-house stood watching on the gray 
rocks of Cape Ann ; 

On its windy sits uplifting gabled roof and pali- 
sade, 

And rough walls of unhewn timber with the 
moonlight overlaid. 

On his slow round walked the sentry, south and 

eastward looking forth 
O'er a rude and broken coast-line, white with 

breakers stretching north, — 
Wood and rock and gleaming sand-drift, jagged 

capes, with bush and tree, 
Leaning inland from the smiting of the wild and 

gusty sea. 

Before the deep-mouthed chimney, dimly lit by 
dying brands, 

Twenty soldiers sat and waited, with their mus- 
kets in their hands ; 

On the rough-hewn oaken table the venison 
haunch was shared, 

And the pewter tankard circled slowly round from 
beard to beard. 

Long they sat and talked together, — talked of 
wizards Satan-sold ; 

Of all ghostly sights and noises, — signs and won- 
ders manifold ; 

Of the spectre-ship of Salem, with the dead men 
in her shrouds, 

Sailing sheer above the water, in the loom of 
morning clouds ; 



164 



THE PROPHECY OF f\ .MUEL SEWALL. 



Of the marvellous valley hidden in the depths of 
Gloucester woods, 

Full of plants that love the summer, — blooms of 
warmer la! LI ud< s ; 

Where the Arctic birch is braided by the tropic's 
flowerj vines, 

And the white magnolia-blossoms star the twi- 
light, of t li ■ pines ! 

But their voices sank yet lower, sank to husky 

toin s of fear, 
As they spake of present tokens of the powers of 

evil near ; 
Of a spectral host, driving stroke of steel and aim 

of gun; 
Never yet was ball to slay them in the mould of 

mortals run ! 



< 'eased thereat the mystic marching of the spectres 

round the wall, 
But a sound abhorred, unearthly, smote the ears 

and hearts of all, — 
Howls of rage and shrieks of anguish! Never 

a Eter mortal man 
Saw the ghostly leaguers marching round the 

block-house of Cape Ann. 

So to us who walk in summer through the cool 

and sea-blown town. 
From the childhood of its people comes the Bolemn 

li | nil down. 
Not in vain the ancient fiction, in whose moral 

lives the youth 
And the fitness and the freshness of an undecay- 

ing truth. 



Thrice, with plumes and flowing scalp-locks, from Soon or late to all our dwellings come the spectres 

the midnight wood they came, — of the mind, 

Thrice around the block-house marching, met, | Doubts and fears and dread forebodings, in tl e 

unharmed, its volleyed Same; darkneis undefined ; 

Then, with mocking laugh and gestare, sunk in Round us throng tie grim projections of the 

earth or lost in air, heart and of the brain, 

All the ghostly wonder vanished, and the moonlit | And oi:r pride of strength is weakness, and tie; 

sands lay bare. cunning hand is vain. 

Midnight came; from out the forest moved a In the dark we cry like children ; and no answer 

dusky mass that soon from on high 

Grew to warriors, plumed and painted, grimly J Breaks tl e crystal spheres of silence, and no 

marching in the moon. white wings downward fly ; 

"Ghosts or witches," said the captain, "thus I But the heavenly help we pray for comes to faith, 

and not to sight, 
And our prayers themselves drive backward all 



foil the Evil One! 
And he rammed a silver button, from his doublet, 
down his gun. 



Once again the spectral horror moved the guarded 

wall about ; 
Once again the levelled muskets through the pali- 

sades Hashed out, 
With that deadly aim the squirrel on his tree-top 

might not shun 
Nor the beach-bird seaward flying with his slant 

wing to the sun. 

Like the idle rain of simmer sped the harmless 

shower of lead. 
With a laugh of fierce derision, once again the 

phantoms fled ; 
Once again, without a shadow on the sands the 

moonlight lay, 
And the white smoke curling through it drifted 

slowly down the bay ! 

"God preserve us!" said the captain; "never 
mortal foes were there ; 

They have vanished with their leader, Prince and 
Power of the air ! 

Lay aside your useles s weapons ; skill and prowess 
naught avail ; 

They who do the Devil's service wear their mas- 
ter's coat of mail ! " 

So the night grew near to cock-crow, when again 

a warning call 
Roused the score of weary soldiers watching round 

the dusky hall : 
And they looked to flint and priming, and they 

longed for break of day ; 
But the captain closed his Bibie: "Let us cease 

from man, and pray ! " 

To the men who went before us, all the unseen 
powers seemed near, 

And their steadfast strength of courage struckits 

roots in holy fear. 
Every hand forsook the musket, ever}' head was 

bowed anil bare, 
Everj stout, knee pressed the flag-stones, as the 

captain led in prayer. 



the spirits of the night ! 



THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL. 

101)7. 

Up and down the village streets 

Strange are the forms my fancy me* ts, 

For the thoughts and things of to-day are hid, 

And through the veil of a closed lid 

The ancient worthies I see again: 

I hear the tap of the elder's cane, 

And his awful periwig 1 see, 

And the silver buckles of shoe and knee. 

Stately and slow, with thoughtful air, 

His black cap hiding his whitened hair, 

Walks thi? Judge of tin- great Assize, 

Samuel Sewall the good and wise. 

His face with lines of firmness wrought, 

He wears the look of a man unbought, 

Who swears to his hurt and changes not; 

Yet, touched and softened nevertheless 

With the grace of Christian gentleness, 

The face that a child would climb to kiss ! 

True and tender and brave and just, 

That man might honor and woman trust. 

Toucl ing and sad, a tale is told, 
Like a penitent hymn of the Psalmist old, 
Of the fast which the good man lifelong kept 
With a haunting sorrow that never slept. 
As the circling year brought round the time 
Of an error that left the sting of crime, 
Wieii he sat on the bench of the witchcrafl 

courts, 
With the laws of Moses and Hale's Ri poits, 
And spake, in the name of both, the word 
That gave the witch's neck to the cord, 
And piled the oaken planks that pre: sed 
The feeble life from the warlock's breast ! 
Ml the da] long, from dawn to dawn. 
His door was bolted, his curtain drawn ; 



SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE. 



165 



No foot on his silent threshold trod. 
No eye looked on him save that of God, 
As he baffled the ghosts of the (had with charms 
Of penitent itea i ers, and psalms, 

And. with precious proofs from the sacred word 
Of the boundless pity and love of the Lord, 
His faith confirmed and his trust renewed 
That the sin of Ids ignorance, sorely rued, 
Might be washed away in the mingled flood 
Of his human sorrow and Christ's dear blood ! 

Green forever the memory be 
Of the Judge of the old Theocracy, 
Whom even his errors glorified, 
Like a far-seen, sunlit mountain-side 
By the cloudy shadows which o'er it glide ! 
Honor and praise to the Puritan 
Who the halting step of his age outran, 
And, seeing the infinite worth of man 
In the priceless gift the Father gave, 
In the infinite love that stooped to save, 
Dared not brand his brother a slave ! 
" Who doth such wrong." be was wont to say, 
In his own quaint, picture-loving way, 
•' Flings up to Heaven a hand-grenade 
Which Gad shall cast down upon his head ! " 

Widely as heaven and hell, contrast 
That brave old jurist of the past 
And the cunning trickster and knave of courts 
Who the holy features of Truth distorts, — 
R ding as right the will of the strong, 
Poverty, crime, and weakness wrong ; 
Wide-eared to power, to th :• wronged and weak 
I )eaf as Egypt's gods of leek ; 
Scoffing aside at party's nod 
Order of nature and law of G id ; 
For whose dabbled ermine respect were waste, 
Reverence folly, and awe misplaced ; 
Justice of whom 't were vain t > seek 
As from Koordish robber or Syrian Sheik ! 
O, leave the wretch to his bribes and sins ; 
L t him rot in the web of lies he spins ! 
To the saintly soul of the early day, 
To the Christian judge, let us turn and say : 
" Praise and thanks for an honest man ! — 
Glory to God for the Puritan ! " 

I see, far southward, this cpiiet day, 
The hills of Newbury rolling away, 
With the many tints of the season gay, 
Dreamily blending in autumn mist 
Crimson, and gold, and amethyst. 
Long and low, with dwarf trees crowned, 
Plum Island lies, like a whale aground, 
A stone's toss over the narrow sound. 
Inland, as far as the eye can go, 
The hills curve round like a bended bow ; 
A silver arrow from out them sprung, 
I see the shine of the Quasycung ; 
And, round and round, over valley and hill, 
Old roads winding, as old roads will, 
Here to a ferry, and there to a mill ; 
And glimpses of chimneys and gabled eaves, 
Through green elm arches and maple leaves, — 
Old homesteads sacred to all that can 
Gladden or sadden the heart of man, — 
Over whi>se thresholds of oak and stone 
L : fe and Death have come and gone ! 
There pictured tiles in the fireplace show, 
Great beams sag from the ceiling low, 
The dresser glitters with polished wares. 
The long clock ticks on the foot-worn stairs, 
And the low, broad chimney shows the crack 
By the earthquake made a century back. 
Up from their midst springs the village spire 
With the crest of its cock in the sun afire ; 
Beyond are orchards and planting lands, 
And great salt marshes and glimmering sands, 



And, where north and south the coast-lines run. 
The blink of the sea in breeze and sun ! 

I see it all like a chart unrolled. 
But my thoughts are full of the past and old, 
I hear the tales of my boyhood told ; 
And the shadows ami shapes of early days 
Flit dimly by in the veiling haze, 
With measured movement and rhythmic chime 
Weaving like shuttles my web of rhyme. 
I think of the old man wise and good 
Who once on you misty hillsides stood, 
(A poet who never measured rhyme, 
A seer unknown to his dull-eared time,) 
And, propped on his staff of age, looked down, 
Witli his boyhood's love, on his native town, 
Where, written, as if on its hills and plains, 
His burden of prophecy yet remains, 
For the voices of wood, and wave, and wind 
To read in the ear of the musing mind : — 

" As long as Plum Island, to guard the coast 
As God appointed, shall keep its post ; 
As long as a salmon shall haunt the deep 
( )f Merrimack River, or sturgeon leap ; 
As long as pickerel swift and slim, 
Or red-backed perch, in Crane Pond swim ; 
As long as the annual sea-fowl know 
Their time to come and their time to go ; 
As long as cattle shall roam at will 
The green, grass meadows by Turkey Hill ; 
As long as sheep shall look from the side 
Of Oldtown Hill on marishes wide, 
And Parker River, and salt-sea tide ; 
As long as a wandering pigeon shall search 
The fields below from his white-oak perch, 
When the barley-harvest is ripe and shorn, 
Aud the dry husks fall from the standing corn ; 
As long as Nature shall not grow old, 
Nor drop her work from her doting hold, 
And her care for the Indian corn forget, 
And the yellow rows in pairs to set ; — 
So long shall Christians here be born, 
Grow up and ripen as God's sweet corn ! — 
By the beak of bird, by the breath of frost, 
Shall never a holy ear be lost, 
But, husked by Death in the Planter's sight, 
Be sown again in the fields of light ! " 
The Island still is purple with plums, 
Up the river the salmon conies, 
The sturgeon leaps, and the wild-fowl feeds 
On hillside berries and marish seeds, — 
All the beautiful signs remain. 
From spring-time sowing to autumn rain 
The good man's vision returns again ! 
And let us hope, as well we can, 
That the Silent Angel who garners man 
May find some grain as of old he found 
In the human cornfield ripe and sound, 
And the Lord of the Harvest deign to own 
The precious seed by the fathers sown ! 



SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE. 

Of all the rides since the birth of time, 
Told in story or sung in rhyme, — 
On Apuleius's Golden Ass, 
Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass, 
Witch astride of a human back, 
Islam's prophet on Al-Bonik,— 
The strangest ride that ever was sped 
Waslreson's, out from Marblehead ! 
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart 
By the women of Marblehead ! 



16G 



SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE. 



Body of turkey, head of owl, 
Wings a-droop Like a rained-on fowl, 
Feathered ami ruffled in every part, 
Skipper [reson stood in the cart. 
Scores cil' women, old and young, 
Strong "l' muscle, ami glib of bongue, 
Pushed and pulled up the rocky Line, 
Shouting and singing tin' shrill refrain : 
"Here's Find Oh son, Eur liis horrd horrt, 
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt 
By the women o' Morble'ead ! " 

Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips, 

( iiils in bloom of cheek and lips, 

Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase 

Bacchus round some antique vase, 

Brief of skirt, with ankles bare, 

Loose of kerchief and loose of hair, 

With conch-shells blowing and tish-horns' twang, 

Over and over the Msenads sang : 

" Here 's Find Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, 
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt 
By the women o' Morble'ead! " 

Small pity for him ! — He sailed away 
From a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay, — 
Sailed away from a sinking wreck, 
With his own town's-people on her deck ! 
"Lay by ! lay by ! " they called to him. 
Back he answered, " Sink or swim ! 
Brag of your catch of fish again ! " 
And off he sailed through the fog and rain ! 
Old Floyd Ireson, for his haul heart, 
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart 
By the women of Marblehead ! 

Fathoms deep in dark Chaleur 
That wreck shall lie forevermore. 



Mother and sister, wife and maid, 
Looked from the rocks of Marblehead 
( her t he moaning and rainy sea, — 
Looked for t he coining thar, might not be ! 
What did the winds and the sea birds say 
Of the cruel captain who sailed away V — 
Old Floyd [reson, for his hard heart, 
Tarred and Eeathered and carried in :: cart 
By the women of Marblehead ! 

Through the street, on either side, 
Up Hew windows, doors swung wide ; 
Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray, 
Treble lent the fish-horn's bray. 
Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound, 
Hulks of old sailors inn aground, 
Shook head, and list, and hat, and cane, 
And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain : 
"Here's Find Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, 
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt 
By the women o' Morble'ead ! " 

Sweetly along the Salem road 
Bloom of orchard and lilac showed. 
Little the wicked skipper knew 
Of the fields so green and the sky so blue. 
Riding there in his sorry trim, 
Like an Indian idol glum and grim, 
Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear 
Of voices shouting, far and near : 

"Here 's Find Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, 
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt 
By the women o' Morble'ead ! " 

" Hear me, neighbors ! " at last he cried, — 
" What to me is this noisy ride '? 
What is the shame that clothes the skin 
To the nameless horror that lives within ? 




" Skipper Ireson stood in the cart. 11 



TELLING THE BEES. 



16? 




rily singing the chore-girl small." 



Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck, 

And hear a cry from a reeling deck ! 

Hate me and curse me, — 1 only dread 

The hand of God and the face of the dead ! " 
Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart 
By the women of Marblehead ! 

Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea 
Said, " God has touched him ! — why should we ? " 
Said an old wife mourning her only son, 
" Cut the rogue's tether and let him run ! " 
So with soft relentings and rude excuse, 
Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose, 
And gave him a cloak to hide him in, 
And left him alone with his shame and sin. 
Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart 
By the women of Marblehead ! 



TELLING THE BEES. 66 

Here is the place ; right over the hill 

Runs the path I took ; 
You can see the gap in the old wall still, 

And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook. 

There is the house, with the gate red-barred, 

And the poplars tall ; 
And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard, 

And the white horns tossb.g above the wall. 



There are the beehives ranged in the sun ; 

And down by the brink 
Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'errun, 

Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink. 

A year has gone, as the tortoise goes, 

Heavy and slow ; 
And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows, 

And the same brook sings of a year ago. 

There 's the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze ; 

And the June sun warm 
Tangles his wings of lire in the trees, 

Setting, as then, over Fernside farm. 

I mind me how with a lover's care 

From my Sunday coat 
I brushed oft' the burrs, and smoothed my hair, 

And cooled at the brookside my brow and 
throat. 

Since we parted, a month had passed, — 

To love, a year ; 
Down through the beeches I looked at last 

On the little red gate and the well-sweep near. 

I can see it all now, — the slantwise rain 

Of light through the leaves, 
The sundown's blaze on her window-pane, 

The bloom of her roses under the eaves. 

Just the same as a month before, — 

The house and the trees, 
The barn's brpwn gable, the vine by the door, — 

Nothing changed but the hives of bees. 



168 



THE SYCAMORES. 



Before them, under the garden wall, 

Forward and hack. 
Went drearilj singing the chore-girl small, 

Draping each hive with a shred of hlack. 

Trembling, [listened: the summer sun 

1 [ad bhe Hull of snow ; 
For I knew she was telling tin' bees of one 

< tone on tin' journey we all must go ! 

Then I said to myself, " My Mary weeps 

For the dead to-day : 
Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps 

The tret and the pain of his age away." 

But her dog whined low ; on the doorway sill, 

With his cane to his chin, 
The old man sat ; and the chore-girl still 

Sung to the bees stealing out and in. 

And the song she was singing ever since 
In my ear sounds on : — ■ 
'Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence ! 
Mistress Mary is dead and gone! " 



THE SYCAMORES. 

In the outskirts of the village, 
On the river's winding shores, 

Stun I the Occidental plane-trees, 
Stand the ancient sycamores. 

One long century hath been numbered, 

And another half-way told, 
Since the rustic Irish gleeman 

Broke for them the virgin mould. 

Deftly set to Celtic music, 
At his violin's sound they grew, 

Through the moonlit eves of summer, 
Making Amphion's fable true. 

Rise again, thou poor Hugh Tallant 

Pass in jerkin green along, 
With thy eyes brimful of laughter, 

And thy mouth as full of song. 

Pioneer of Erin's outcasts, 
With his fiddle and his pack ; 

Little dreamed the village Saxons 
Of the myriads at his back. 

How he wrought with spade and fiddle, 
Delved by day and sang by night, 

With a hand that never wearied, 
And a heart forever light, — 

Still the gay tradition mingles 
With a record grave and drear, 

Like the rolic air of Cluny, 

With the solemn march of Mear. 

When the box-tree, white with blossoms, 
Make the sweet May woodlands glad, 

And the Aronia by the river 
Lighted up the swarming shad, 

And the bulging net- swept shoreward, 

With their silver-sided haul. 
Midst the shouts of dripping fishers, 

He was merriest of them all. 

When, among the jovial huskers, 
Love stole in at Labor's side 

With the lusty airs of England, 
Soft his Celtic measures vied. 



Songs of love and wailing lyke-wake, 

And the merry fair's carouse; 
< >l the wild lied Pox of Erin 

And the Woman of Three Cows, 

By the blazing hearths of winter, 
I 'leasant seemed his simple tales, 

Midst the grimmer Yorkshire legends 
And the mountain myths of Wales. 

How the souls in Purgatory 
Scrambled up from fate forlorn, 

On St. Keven's sackcloth ladder, 
Slyly hitched to Satan's horn. 

Of the fiddler who at Tara 

Played all night to ghosts of kings ; 
Of the brown dwarfs, and the fairies 

Dancing in their moorland rings ! 

Jolliest of our birds of singing, 

Best he loved the Bob-o-link. 
" Hush ! " he 'd say, " the tipsy fairies ! 

Hear the little folks in drink ! " 

Merry-faced, with spade and fiddle, 
Singing through the ancient town, 

Only this, of poor Hugh Tallant, 
Hath tradition handed down. 

Not a stone his grave discloses ; 

But if yet his spirit walks, 
'T is beneath the trees he planted, 

And when Bob-o-Lincoln talks ; 

Green memorials of the gleeman ! 

Linking still the river-shores, 
With their shadows cast by sunset, 

Stand Hugh Tallant' s sycamores ! 

When the Father of his Country 

Through the north-land riding came, 

And the roofs were starred with banners, 
And the steeples rang acclaim, — 

When each war-scarred Continental, 
Leaving smithy, mill, and farm, 

Waved his rusted sword in welcome, 
And shot off his old king's arm, — 

Slowly passed that august Presence 
Down the thronged and shouting street : 

Village girls as white as angels, 
Scattering flowers around his feet. 

Midway, where the plane-tree's shadow 
Deepest fell, his rein he drew : 

On his stately head, uncovered, 
Cool and soft the west-wind blew. 

And he stood up in his stirrups, 
Looking up and looking down 

On the hills of Gold and Silver 
Rimming round the little town, 

On the river, full of sunshine, 

To the lap of greenest vales 
Winding down from wooded headlands, 

Willow-skirted, white with sails. 

And he said, the landscape sweeping 
Slowly with his ungloved hand, 

" 1 have seen no prospect fairer 
In this goodly Eastern land." 

Then the bugles of his escort 

Stirred to life the cavalcade: 
And that head, so bare and stately, 

Vanished down the depths of shade. 



THE DOUBLE-HEADED SNAKE OF NEWBURY. 



109 



Ever since, in town and farm-house, 
Life has had its ebb and flow ; 

Thrice hath passed the human harvest 
To its garner green and low. 

But the trees the gleeman planted, 

Through the changes, changeless stand ; 

As the marble calm of Tadmor 
Marks the desert's shifting sand. 

Still the level moon at rising 
Silvers o'er each stately shaft; 

Still beneath them, half in shadow. 
Singing, glides the pleasure craft. 

Still beneath them, arm-enfolded. 
Love and Youth together stray ; 

While, as heart to heart beats faster, 
More and more their feet delay. 

Where the ancient cobbler, Keezar, 

On the open hillside wrought, 
Singing, as he drew his stitches, 

Songs his German masters taught,— 

Singing, with his gray hair floating 

Round his rosy ample face, — 
Now a thousand Saxon craftsmen 

Stitch and hammer in his place. 

All the pastoral lanes so gras 
Now are Traffic's dusty streets ; 

From the village, grown a city, 
Fast the rural grace retreats. 

But, still green, and tall, and stately, 
On the river's winding shores, 

Stand the Occidental plane-trees, 
Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores. 



THE DOUBLE-HEADED SNAKE OF 
NEWBURY. 

" Concerning y e Amphisbsena, as soon as I received 
your commands. I made diligent inquiry : ....he as- 
sures me y' it had really two heads, one at each end; 
two mouths, two stings or tongues." — Rev. Christo- 
pher Toppax to Cotton Mather. 

Far away in the twilight time 
Of every people, in every clime, 
Dragons and griffins and monsters dire, 
Born of water, and air, and fire, 
Or nursed, like the Python, in the mud 
And ooze of the old Deucalion flood. 
Crawl and wriggle and foam with rage. 
Through dusk tradition and ballad age. 
So from the childhood of Newbury town 
And its time of fable the tale comes down 
Of a terror which haunted bush and brake, 
The Amphisbajna, the Double Snake ! 

Thou who makest the tale thy mirth, 

Consider that strip of Christian earth 

On the desolate shore of a sailless sea, 

Full of terror and mystery, 

Half redeemed from the evil hold 

Of the wood so dreary, and dark, and old, 

Which drank with its lips of leaves the dew 

When Time was young, and the world was new, 



And wove its shadows with sun and moon, 

Ere the stones. of Cheops were squared and hewn. 

Think of the sea's dread monotone, 

Of the mournful wail from the pine-wood blown, 

Of the strange, vast splendors that lit the North, 

Of the troubled throes of the quaking earth, 

And the dismal tales the Indian told, 

Till the settler's heart at his hearth grew cold, 

And he shrank from the tawny wizard's boasts. 

And the hovering shadows seemed full of ghosts, 

And above, below, and on every side, 

The fear of his creed seemed verified ; — 

And think, if his lot were now thine own, 

To grope with terrors nor named nor known, 

How laxer muscle and weaker nerve 

And a feebler faith thy need might serve ; 

And own to thyself the wonder more 

That the snake had two heads, and not a score ! 

Whether he lurked in the Oldtown fen 

Or the gray earth-flax of the Devil's Den, 

Or swam in the wooded Artichoke, 

Or coiled by the Northman's Written Rock, 

Nothing on record is left to show ; 

Only the fact that he lived, we know, 

And left the cast of a double head 

In the scaly mask which he yearly shed. 

For he carried a head where his tail should be, 

And the two, of course, could never agree, 

But wiggled about with main and might, 

Now to the left and now to the right ; 

Pulling and twisting this way and that, 

Neither knew what the other was at. 

A snake with two heads, lurking so near ! — 
Judg of the wonder, guess at the fear ! 
Think what ancient gossips might say, 
Shaking their heads in their dreary way, 
Between the meetings on Sabbath-day ! 
How urchins, searching at day's decline 
The Common Pasture for sheep or kine, 
The terrible double-ganger heard 
In leafy rustle or whir of bird ! 
Think what a zest it gave to the sport, 
In berry-time, of the younger sort. 
As over pastures blackberry-twined, 
Reuben and Dorothy lagged behind, 
And closer and closer, for fear of harm, 
The maiden clung to her lover's arm ; 
And how the spark, who was forced to stay, 
By his sweetheart's fears, till the break of d&y, 
Thanked the snake for the fond delay ! 

Far and wide the tale was told, 

Like a snowball growing while it rolled. 

The nurse hushed with it the baby's cry ; 

And it served, in the worthy minister's eye, 

To paint the primitive serpent by. 

Cotton Mather came galloping down 

All the way to Newbury town. 

With his eyes agog and his ears set wide, 

And his marvellous inkhorn at his side ; 

Stirring the while in the shallow pool 

Of his brains for the lore he learned at school, 

To garnish the story, with here a streak 

Of Latin, and there another of Greek : 

And the tales he heard and the notes he took, 

Behold ! are they not in his Wonder-Book ? 

Stories, like dragons, are hard to kill. 

If the snake does not, the tale runs still 

In Bytield Meadows, on Pipestave Hill. 

And still, whenever husband and wife 

Publish the shame of their daily strife, 

And, with mad cross-purpose, tug and strain 

At either end of the marriage-chain, 

The gossips say, with a knowing shake 

Of their gray heads, " Look at the Double Snake! 

One in body and two in will, 

The Amphisbama is living still ! " 



170 



SWAN SONG OF PARSON AVERY.— TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA. 



THE SWAN SONG OF PAKSON AVERY. 

When bhe reaper's task was ended, and the sum- 
mer wearing late 

Parson Avery sailed from Newbury, with his wife 
and child] 

Dropping down the river-harbor in the shallop 
" Watch ami Wait." 

Pleasantly lay the clearings in the mellow sum- 
mer morn, 

With the newly planted orchards dropping their 

Emits first-born. 
And the homesteads like green islands amid a sea, 

of corn. 

Broad meadows reached out seaward the tided 

creeks between, 
And lulls rolled wave-like inland, with oaks and 

walnuts green ; — 
A fairer home, a goodlier land, his eyes had never 

seen. 

Yet away sailed Parson Avery, away where duty 

led, 
And the voice of God seemed calling, to break 

the living bread 
To the souls of fishers starving on the rocks of 

Marblehead. 

All day they sailed : at nightfall the plaasant 
land-breeze died, 

The blackening sky, at midnight, its starry lights 
denied. 

And far and low the thunder of tempest prophe- 
sied ! 

Blotted out were all the coast-lines, gone were 
rock, and wood t and sand ; 

Grimly anxious stood the skipper with the rud- 
der in his hand, 

And questioned of the darkness what was sea and 
what was land. 

And the preacher heard his dear ones, nestled 
round him, weeping sore : 

"Never heed, my little children ! Christ is walk- 
ing on before 

To the pleasant land of heaven, where the sea 
shall be no more." 

All at once the great cloud parted, like a curtain 

drawn aside, 
To let down the torch of lightning on the terror 

far and wide ; 
And the thunder and the whirlwind together 

smote the tide. 

There was wailing in the shallop, woman's wail 

and man's despair, 
A crash of breaking timbers on the rocks so sharp 

and bare, 
And, through it all, the murmur of Father 

Avery's prayer. 

From his struggle in the darkness with the wild 

waves and the blast, 
On a rock, where every billow broke above him 

as it passed, 
Alone, of all his household, the man of God was 

cast. 

There a comrade beard him praying, in the pause 
of wave and wind : 

" All my own have gone before me, and I linger 
just behind ; 

Not for life 1 ask, but only for the rest the ran- 
somed find ! 



" In this night of death I challenge the promise 

id thy word ! — 
L t me see the great salvation of which mine ears 

hi \ e heard ! — 
Let me pass from hence forgiven, through the 

grace of < ihrist, our bind ! 

"In the baptism of these waters wash white my 
everj Bin, 

And hi me follow Up to thee my household and 

my kin ! 
Open tin- sea gate of thy heaven, and let me 

( nt r in ! " 

When the Christian sings his death-song, all the 

listening heavens draw near, 
And the angels, leaning over the walls of ei \ stal, 

hear 
How the notes so faint and broken .swell to music 

in God's ear. 

The ear of God was open to his servant's last 

requesi ; 
As the strong wave swept him downward the 

sweet hymn upward pressed, 
And the soul of Father Avery went, singing, to 

its rest. 

There was wailing on the mainland, from the 

rocks of Marblehead ; 
In the stricken church of Newbury the notes of 

prayer were read ; 
And long, by board and hearthstone, the living 

mourned the dead. 

And still the fishers outbound, or scudding from 

the squall. 
With grave and reverent faces, the ancient tale 

recall, 
When they see the white waves breaking on the 

Rock of Avery's Fall ! 



THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA. 

1675. 

Raze these long blocks of brick and stone, 
These huge mill-monsters overgrown ; 
Blot out the humbler piles as well, 
Where, moved like living shuttles, dwell 
The weaving genii of the bell ; 
Tear from the wild Cocheco's track 
The dams that hold its torrents back; 
And let the loud-rejoicing fall 
Plunge, roaring, down its rocky wall ; 
And let the Indian's paddle play 
On the unbridged Piscataqua! 
Wide over hill and valley spread 
Once more the forest, dusk and dread, 
With here and there a clearing cut 
Prom the walled shadows round it shut; 
Each with its farm-house budded rude. 
By English yoeman squared and hewed, 
And the grim, Hankered block-house bound 
With bristling palisades around. 
So, haply shall before thine eyes 
The dusty veil of centuries rise, 
The old, strange scenery overlay 
The tamer pictures of to 
While, like the actors in a play, 
Pass in their ancient guise along 
The figures of mj border song : 

What time beside Cocheco's 11. mil 
The white man anil the red man stood, 
With words of peace and brotherhood ; 



THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA. 



171 



When passed the sacred calumet 
From lip to lip with fire-draught wet, 
And, puffed in scorn, the peace-pipe's smoke 
Through the gray beard of Waldron broke, 
And Squando's voice, in suppliant plea 
For mercy, struck the haughty key 
Of one who held, in any fate, 
His native pride inviolate ! 

" Let your cars be opened wide ! 
He who speaks has never lied. 
Waldron of Piscataqua, 
Hear what Squando has to say ! 

" Squando shuts his eyes and sees, 
Far nit', Saco's hemlock-trees. 
In his wigwam, still as stone, 
Sits a woman all alone, 

" Wampum beads and birchen strands 
Dropping from her careless hands, 
Listening ever for the fleet 
Patter of a dead child's feet ! 

"When the moon a year ago 
Told the flowers the time to blow, 
In that lonely wigwam smiled 
Menewee, our little child. 

" Ere that moon grew thin and old, 
He was lying still and cold \ 
Sent before us, weak and small, 
When the Master did not call ! 

" On his little grave I lay ; 
Three times went and came the day ; 
Thrice above me blazed the noon, 
Thrice upon me wept the moon. 

" In the third night-watch I heard, 
Far and low, a spirit-bird ; 
Very mournful, very wild, 
Sang the totem of my child. 

" 'Menewee, poor Menewee, 
Walks a path he cannot see : 
Let the white man's wigwam light 
With its blaze his steps aright. 

" 'All-uncalled, he dares not show 
Empty hands to Manito : 
Better gifts he cannot bear 
Than the scalps his slayers wear.' 

" All the while the totem sang, 
Lightning blazed and thunder rang ; 
And a black cloud, reaching high, 
Pulled the white moon from the sky. 

" I, the medicine-man, whose ear 
All that spirits hear can hear,— 
I, whose eyes are wide to see 
All the things that are to be, — 

"Well I knew the dreadful signs 
In the whispers of the pines, 
In the river roaring loud, 
In the mutter of the cloud. 

" At the breaking of the day, 
From the grave I passed away ; 
Flowers bloom round me, birds sang glad, 
But my heart was hot and mad. 

" There is rust on Squando's knife, 
From the warm, red springs of life ; 
On the funeral hemlock-trees 
Mauy a scalp the totem sees. 



" Blood for blood ! But evermore 

Squando's heart is sad and sore ; 
And his poor squaw waits at home 
For the feet that never come ! 

" Waldron of Cocheco, hear ! 
Squando speaks, who laughs at fear ; 
Take the captives he has ta'en ; 
Let the land have peace again ! " 

As the words died on his tongue,' 
Wide apart Ids warriors swung; 

d, at the sign he gave, 
Right and left, like Egypt's wave. 

And, like Israel passing free 
Through the prophet-charmed sea, 
Captive mother, wife, and child 
Through the dusky terror filed. 

One alone, a little maid, 
Middleway her steps delayed, 
Glancing, with quick, troubled sight, 
Round about from red to white. 

Then his hand the Indian laid 
On the little maiden's head, 
Lightly from her forehead fair 
Smoothing back her yellow hair. 

" Gift or favor ask I none ; 
What I have is all my own : 
Never yet the birds have sung, 
'Squando hath a beggar's tongue.' 

" Yet for her who waits at home, 
For the dead who cannot come, 
Let the little Gold-hair be 
In the place of Menewee ! 

" Mishanock, my little star ! 
Come to Saco's pines afar ; 
Where the sad one waits at home, 
Wequashim, my moonlight, come ! " 

"What ! " quoth Waldron, " leave a child 
Christian-born to heathens wild ? 
As God lives, from Satan's hand 
I will pluck her as a brand ! " 

" Hear me, white man ! " Squando cried ; 
" Let the little one decide. 
Wequashim, my moonlight, say, 
Wilt thou go with me, or stay ? " 

Slowly, sadly, half afraid, 

Half regretfully, the maid 

Owned the ties of blood and race, — 

Turned from Squando's pleading face. 

Not a word the Indian spoke, 
But his wampum chain he broke, 
And the beaded wonder hung 
On that neck so fair and young. 

Silence-shod, as phantoms seem 
In the marches of a dream, 
Single-filed, the grim array 
Through the pine-trees wound away. 

Doubting, trembling, sore amazed, 
Through her tears the young child gazed. 
" God preserve her ! " Waldron said ; 
" Satan hath bewitched the maid ! " 

Years went and came. At close of day 
Singing came a child from play, 
Tossing from her loose-locked head 
Gold in sunshine, brown in shade. 



173 



THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA.— MY PLAYMATE. 



Pride was in the mother's look, 
I int her head she gravely shook, 
And with lips that Eondly smiled 
d to chide her truant child. 

I fhabashed, the maid began : 
'• I p and down the brook I ran, 
Where, beneath the bank so steep, 
Lie the spotted trout asleep. 

" 'Chip!' went squirrel on the wall, 
A Eter me 1 heard him call, 
And tin' eat -bird on t lie tree 
Tried his best to mimic me. 

" Where the hemlocks grew so d;irk 
That 1 stopped to look anil hark, 
On a. lot;-, with feather hat, 
By the path, an Indian sat. 

"Then I cried, and ran away ; 
Hut lie called, and bade me stay; 
Ami his \oiee was good and mild 
As my mother's to her child. 

" And he took my wampum chain, 
Looked and looked it. o'er again; 

Gave me berries, and, beside, 
On my neck a plaything tied." 

Straight the mother stooped to see 
What the Indian's gilt might be. 
On the braid of Wampum bung, 
Lo ! a cross of silver swung. 



Well she knew its graven sign, 
Squando's bird and totem pine: 
And, a mirage of the brain, 
Flowed her childhood hack again. 

Flashed the roof the sunshine through, 
Into space the walls outgrew ; 
On the Indian's wigwam-mat. 
Blossom-crowned, again she sat. 



Cool she felt the west-wind blow, 
In her ear the pines sang low, 
And, like links from out a chain, 
Propped the years of care and pain. 

From the outward toil and din, 
From the griefs that gnaw within, 
To the freedom of the woods 
Called the birds, and winds, and floods. 

Well, O painful minister ! 
Watch thy flock, but blame not her, 
If her ear grew sharp so hear 
All their voices whispering near. 

Blame her not, as to her soul 
All the desert's glamour stole, 
That a tear for childhood's loss 
Dropped upon the Indian's cross. 

When, that night, the Book was read, 
Ami she bowed her widowed head, 
And a prayer for each hived name 
Rose like incense from a flame, 

To the listening ear of Heaven, 
Lo ! another name was given : 
" Father, give the Indian rest! 
Bless him ! for his love has blest ! " 



MY PLAYMATE. 

THE i >ine>3 were dark on Kamoth hill. 
Their song was soft and low; 

Tin 1 lilossoiiis in the sweet May wind 
Were falling like the snow. 



The blossoms drifted at our feet, 
The orchard birds sang clear; 

Tin' sweetest, ami the saddest day 
It seemed of all the year. 

For, more to me than birds or flowers, 

My playmate left her home, 
And took with her the laughing spring, 

The music and the bloom. 



She kissed the lips of kith and kin, 
She laid her hand in mine : 

What more could ask the bashful boy 
Who fed her father's kine ? 



She left us in the bloom of May : 
The constant years told o'er 

Their seasons with as sweet May morns, 
But she came back no more. 



I walk, witli noiseless feet, the round 

Of uneventful years ; 
Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring 

And reap the autumn ears. 

She lives where all the golden year 

Her summer roses blow ; 
The dusky children of the sun 

Before her come and go. 



There haply with her jewelled hands 
She smooths her silken gown, — 

No more the homespun lap wherein 
I shook the walnuts down. 



The wild grapes wait us by the brook, 

The brown nuts on the hill, 
And still the May-day flowers make sweet 

The woods of Follymill. 

The lilies blossom in the pond, • 

The bird builds in the tree, 
The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill 

The slow song of the sea. 

I wonder if she thinks of them. 

And how the old time seems, — 
If ever the pines of Ramoth wood 

Are sounding in her dreams. 

I see her face, I hear her voice : 

Does she remember mine ? 
And what to her is now the boy 

Who fed her father's kine ? 

What care she that the orioles build 

For other eyes than ours, — 
That other hands with nuts are filled, 

And other laps with flowers V 

O playmate in the golden time ! 

Our mossy seat is green, 
Its fringing violets blossom yet, 

The old trees o'er it lean. 



THE SHADOW AND THE LIGHT. 



173 



The winds so sweet with birch and fern 

A gweetei memory blow ; 
And there in spring the veeries sing 

The sony of long ago. 



And still the pines of Ramoth wood 
Are moaning like the sea, — 

The moaning of the sea of change 
Between myself and thee ! 




PL 

m 



" She left us in the bloom of .May." 



POEMS AND LYRICS. 



THE SHADOW AND THE LIGHT. 

'• Ami I sought, whence is Evil : I set before the eye 
of my spirit the whole creation; whatsoever we see 
therein, — sea, earth, air. stars, trees, moral creatures, — 
yea. whatsoever there is we do not see. — angels ami 
spiritual powers. Where is evil, and whence comes it, 
since G-od the Good hath created all things? Why made 
liing at all of evil, and not rather by His A.1- 
mightiness cause it not to be? These thoughts X turned 
in my miserable heart, overcharged with most gnawing 
cares.' " ind, admonished to return to myself, 1 entered 
even into my inmost soul. Thou being my guide, and lie- 
held even beyond my soul and mind the Light unchange- 
able. He who knows the Truth knows what, that Light 
is. and he that knows it knows Eternity ! O Truth, who 
art Eternity ! Love, who art Truth ! Eternity, who art 
Love! .And [beheld that Thou madest all things good, 
ami to Thee is nothing whatsoever evil. From the 
angel to the worm, from the lirst motion to the last, Thou 
settest each in its place, and everything is t,'ood in its 
kind. Woe is me!— how high art Thou in the highest, 
how deep in thedeepest ! and Thou never departest from 
us and we scarcely return to Thee."— Augustine's 
Soliloquies, Book VII. 

Tin? fourteen centuries fall away 
Between us and the Afric saint, 
And at his side we urge, to-day, 
The immemorial quest and old complaint. 



No outward sign to us is given, — 

From sea or earth comes no reply ; 

Hushed as the warm Numidian heaven 

He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky. 

No victory comes of all our strife, — 

Prom all we grasp the meaning slips ; 
The Sphinx sits at the gate of life, 
With the old question on her awful lips. 

In paths unknown we hear the feet 
Of fear before, and guilt behind ; 
We pluck the wayside fruit, and eat • 
Ashes and dust beneath its golden rind. 

From age to age descends unchecked 

The sad bequest of sire to son, 
The body's taint, the mind's defect, — 
Through every web of life the dark threads run. 

O, why and whither ? — God knows all ; 

I only know that he is good, 
And that whatever may befall 
Or here or there, must be the best that could. 

Between the dreadful cherubim 
A Father's face I still discern, 
As Moses looked of old on him, 
And saw his glory into goodness turn ! 



174 



THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS.— THE EVE OF ELECTION. 



For he is merciful .-is just ; 

And so, by faith correcting sight, 
I bow before his will, and trust, 
Howe'er they seem he doeth all things right. 

And dare to hope that he will make 

The rugged smooth, the doubl foil plain; 
His mercy never quite forsake ; 
His healing visit every realm of pain; 

That suffering is nut his revenge 

Upon his creatures weak and frail, 
Sent on a pathway new and strange 
With feet that wander and with (.'yes that fail; 

That, o'er the crucible of pain, 

Watches the tender eye of Love 
The slow transmuting of the chain 
Whose links are iron below to gold above ! 

Ah me ! we doul)t the shining skies, 

Seen through our shadows of offence, 
And drown with our poor childish cries 
The cradle-hymn of kindly Providence. 

And still we love the evil cause, 

And of the just effect complain : 
We tread upon life 's broken laws, 
And murmur at our self-inflicted pain ; 

We turn us from the light, and find 

Our spectral shapes before us thrown, 
As they who leave the sun behind 
Walk in the shadows of themselves alone. 

And scarce by will or strength of ours 

We set our faces to the day ; 
Weak, wavering, blind, the Eternal Powers 
Alone can turn us from ourselves away. 

Our weakness is the strength of sin, 

But love must needs be stronger far, 
Outreaching all and gathering in 
The erring spirit and the wandering star. 

A Voice grows with the growing years ; 

Earth, hushing down her bitter cry, 
Looks upward from her graves, and hears, 
"The Resurrection and the Life am I." 

O Love Divine ! — whose constant beam 

Shines on the eyes that will not see, 

And waits to bless us, while we dream 

Thou leavest us because we turn from thee ! 

All souls that struggle and aspire, 

All hearts of prayer by thee are lit ; 
And, dim or clear, thy tongues of fire 
On dusky tribes and twilight centuries sit. 

Nor bounds, nor clime, nor creed thou know'st, 
Wide as our need 1 by favors fall ; 
'► The white wings of the Holy Ghost 
■Stoop, seen or unseen, o'er the heads of all. 

O Beauty, old yet ever new ! r ' 7 

Eternal Voice, and Inward Word, 
The Logos of the Greek and Jew, 
The old sphere-music which the Samian heard ! 

Truth which the sage and prophet saw, 

Long sought without, but found within, 
The Law of Love beyond all law, 
The Life o'erflooding mortal death and sin ! 

Shine on us with the light which glowed 

Upon the trance hound shepherd's way, 
Who saw the Darkness overflowed 
And drowned by tides of everlasting day. 08 



Shine, light of God ! — make broad thy scope 

To all who sin and suffer ; more 
And better than we dare to hope 
With Heaven's compassion make our longings 
poor ! 



THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS. 

TRITEMIUS of Herbtpolis, one day, 

While kneeling at the altar's foot to pray, 
Alone with God, as was his pious choice, 
Heard from without a, miserable voice, 
A sound which .seemed of all sad tilings to tell, 
As of a lost soul crying out of hell. 

Thereat the Abbot paused ; the chain when by 
(lis thoughts went upward broken by that cry; 
And, looking from the easement, saw below 
A wretched woman, with gray hair a-flow, 
And withered hands held up to him, who cried 

For alms as one who might not be denied. 

i 

She cried, "For the dear love of Him who gave 
His life for ours, my child from bondage save, — 
My beautiful, brave first-born, chained with 

slaves 
In the Moor's galley, where the sun-smit waves 
Lap the white walls of Tunis ! " — " What I can 
1 give," Tritemius said: "my prayers." — "O 

man 
Of God ! " she cried, for grief had made her 

bold, 
"Mock me not thus ; I ask not prayers, but gold. 
Words will not serve me, alms alone suffice ; 
Even while I speak perchance my first-born 

dies. " 

"Woman!" Tritemius answered, "from our 

door 
None go unfed ; hence are we always poor, 
A single soldo is our only store. 
Thou hast our prayers ; — what can we give thee 

more '? " — 

"Give me," she said, "the silver candlesticks 
On either side of the great, crucifix. 
God well may spare them on his errands sped. 
Or he can give you golden ones instead. " 

Then spake Tritemius, "Even as thy word, 

Woman, so be it ! (Our most gracious Lord, 

Who loveth mercy more than sacrifice, 

Pardon me if a human soul I prize 

Above the gifts upon his altar piled !) 

Take what thou askest, and redeem thy child." 

But his hand trembled as the holy alms 
He placed within the beggar's eager palms : 
And as she vanished down the linden shade, 
He bowed his head and for forgiveness praj ed. 

So the day passed, and when the twilight came 
He woke to find the chapel all aflame, 
And, dumb with grateful wonder, to behold 
Upon the altar candlesticks of gold ! 



THE EVE OF ELECTION. 
From gold to gray 

( (ur mild sweet day 

< )!' I ud an Summer lades too soon ; 
But tenderly 

Abo\ e t le- sea. 

Hangs, white ami (■aim, the hunter's moon. 



THE OVER-HEART. 



175 



In its pale flre, 

The village spire 
Shows like the zodiac's spectral lance ; 

The painted walls 

Whereon it falls 
Transfigured stand in marble trance ! 

O'er fallen leaves 

The west-wind grieves, 
Yet comes a seed-time round again ; 

And morn shall see 

The State sown free 
With baneful tares or healthful grain. 

Along the street 

The shadows meet 
Of Destiny, whose hands conceal 

The moulds of fate 

That shape the State, 
And make or mar the common weal. 

Around I see 

The powers that be ; 
I stand by Umpire's primal springs ; 

And princes meet, 

In every street. 
And hear the tread of uncrowned kings ! 

Hark ! through the crowd 

The laugh runs loud, 
Beneath the sad, rebuking moon. 

God save the land 

A careless hand 
May shake or swerve. ere morrow's noon ! 

No jest is this ; 

One cast amiss 
May blast the hope of Freedom's year. 

O, take me where 

Are hearts of prayer, 
The foreheads bowed in reverent fear ! 

Not lightly fall 

Beyond recall 
And written scrolls a breath can float ; 

The crowning fact 

The kingliest act 
Of Freedom is the Freeman's vote ! 

For pearls that gem 

A diadem 
The diver in the deep sea dies ; 

The regal right 

We boast to-night . 
Is ours through costlier sacrifice ; 

The blood of Vane, 

His prison pain 
Who traced the path the Pilgrim trod, 

And hers whose faith 

Drew strength from death, 
And prayed her Russell np to God ! 

Our hearts grow cold, 

We lightly hold 
A right which brave men died to gain ; 

The stake, the cord, 

The axe, the sword, 
Grim nurses at its birth of pain. 

The shadow rend, 

And o'er us bend, 
O martyrs, with your crowns and palms, — 

Breathe through these throngs 

Your battle songs, 
Your scaffold prayers, and dungeon psalms ! 

Look from the sky, 
Like God's great eye, 
Thou solemn noon, with searching beam, 



Till in the sight 
Of thy pure light 
Our mean self-seekings meaner seem. 

Shame from our hearts 

Unworthy arts, 
The fraud designed, the purpose dark ; 

And smite away 

The hands we lay 
Profanely on the sacred ark. 

To party claims 

And private aims, 
Reveal that august face of Truth, 

Whereto are given 

The age of heaven, 
The beauty of immortal youth . 

So shall our voice 

Of soverign choice 
Swell the deep bass of duty done, 

And strike the key 

Of time to be, 
When God and man shall speak as one ! 



THE OVER-HEART. 

" For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all 
things, to whom be glory forever ! " — Paul. 

Above, below, in sky and sod, 
In leaf and spar, in star and man. 
Well might the wise Athenian scan 

The geometric signs of God, 
The measured order of his plan. 

And India's mystics sang aright 
Of the One Life pervading all,— 
One Being's tidal rise and fall 

In soul and form, in sound and sight, — 
Eternal outflow and recall. 

God is : and man in guilt and fear 
The central fact of Nature owns ; — 
Kneels, trembling, by his altar-stones, 

And darkly dreams the ghastly smear 
Of blood appeases and atones. 

Guilt shapes the Terror : deep within 

The human heart the secret lies 

Of all the hideous deities ; 
And, painted on a ground of sin, 

The fabled gods of torment rise ! 

And what is He '? — The ripe grain nods, 
The sweet dews fall, the sweet flowers blow ; 
But darker signs his presence show : 

The earthquake and the storm are God's, 
And good and evil interflow. 

O hearts of love ! O souls that turn 
Like sunflowers to the pure and best ! 
To you the truth is manifest : 

For they the mind of Christ discern 
Who lean like John upon his breast ! 

In him of whom the sibyl told, 

For whom the prophet's harp was toned, 
Whose need the sag eand magian owned, 

The loving heart of God behold, 

The hope for which the ages groaned ! 

Fade, pomp of dreadful imagery 
Wherewith mankind have deified 
Their hate, and selfishness, and pride ! 

Let the scared dreamer wake to see 
The Christ of Nazareth at his side ! 



176 



IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOSEPH STURGE. 



What doth that hoi} Guide require ? — 
No rite of pain, uor gift of blood, 
I tut man a kindhj brotherhood, 

Looking, where duty is desire, 
To him, the beautiful ami good. 

Con.- In- tin- faithlessness of fear, 
Ami let tin 1 pitying heaven's sw ret rain 
Wash out bhe altai s bloody stain ; 

The law <>i Hatred disappear, 
The law nl Lo\ i' alone remain. 

How fall the idols I'alsr and grim ! 
Ami lo ! their hideous wreck abo 1 e 
The emblems of the Lamb and Dove ! 

Man turns from ( 1ml, not < iod from him ; 
Ami guilt, in suffering, whispers Love ! 

The world sits at the feet of Christ, 
Unknowing, blind, and uncon soled; 
It yet shall touch his garment's fold, 

And feel the heavenlj Alchemist 

Transform its very dust to gold. 

The theme befittin gues 

Beyond a mortal's scope has grown. 
() heart of nunc ! with reverence own 

The fulness which to it belongs, 
And trust the unknown for the known. 



IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOSEPH 
STURGE. 

In the fair land o'erwatched by Ischia's moun- 
tains. 
Across tiic charmed bay 
Whose blue waves keep with Capri's silver foun- 
tains 
Perpetual holiday, 

A king lies dead, his wafer duly eaten, 

His gold-bought' masses given ; 
And Rome's great altar smokes with gums to 
sweeten 

Her foulest gift to Heaven. 

And while all Naples thrills with mute thanks- 
giving. 

The court of England's queen 
For the dead monster mi abhorred while living 

In mourning garb is seen. 

With a true sorrow God rebukes that feigning ; 
By lone Edgbaston's side 

Stands a great city in the sky's sad raining, 
Bareheaded and wet-eyed ! 

Silent for once the restless hive of labor, 

Save the low funeral Tread, 
Or voice of craftsman whisperingto his neighbor 

The good deeds of the dead. 

For him no minster's chant of the immortals 

Rose from the lips of sin ; 
No mitred priest swung back the heavenly por- 
tals 

To let the white soul in. 

But Age ami Sickness framed their tearful faces 

In the low hovel's door, 
And prayers went up from all the dark by-places 

Ami < rhettos of the poor. 

The pallid toiler and the negro chattel, 
The vagrant of the street, 



The human dice when with in games of battle 
The lords of earth compete, 

Touched with a grief that needs no outward 
draping, 

All swelled the lung lament. 
Of grateful hearts, instead of marble, shaping 

I lis \ Lewless monument ! 

fin mvei yet, with ritual pomp and splendor, 

In the Ion;; heretofore, 
A heart more loyal, warm, and true, and tender, 

Has England's turf closed o'er. 

And if there fell from out her grand old steeples 

No crash of brazen wail, 
The murmurous woe of kindreds, tongues, and. 
peoples 

Swept in on every gale. 

It came from Holstein's birchen-belted meadows, 

And from the tropic calms 
Of Indian islands in the sun-smit shadows 

Of Occidental palms; 

From the locked roadsteads of the Rothnian peas- 
ants, 
And harbors of the Finn, 
Where war's worn victims saw his gentle pres- 
ence 
Come sailing, Christ-like, in, 

To seek the lost, to build the old waste places, 

To link the hostile shores 
Of severing seas, and sow with England's daisies 

The moss of Finland's moors. 

Thanks for the good man's beautiful example, 

Who in the vilest saw 
Some sacred crypt or altar of a temple 

Still vocal with God's law ; 

And heard with tender ear the spirit sighing 

As from its prison cell, 
Praying for pity, like the mournful crying 

Of Jonah out of hell. 

Not his the golden pen's or lip's persuasion, 

But a tine sense of right, 
And Truth's directness, meeting each occasion 

Straight as a line of light. 

His faith and works, like streams that inter- 
mingle, 

In the same channel ran : 
The crystal clearness of an eye kept single 

Shamed all the frauds of man. 

The very gentlest of all human natures 

He joined to courage strung. 
And love outreaching unto all God's creatures 

With sturdy hate of wrong. 

Tender as woman ; manliness and meekness 

In him were so allied 
That they who judged him by his strength or 
weakness 

Saw but a single side. 

.Men failed, betrayed him, but his zeal seemed 
nourished 

Bj failure and by fall; 
Still a large faith in human-kind he cherished, 

And in God's love for all. 

And now he rests: his greatness and his sweet- 
ness 

No more shall seem at strife; 
Ami death has moulded into calm completeness 

The statue of his life. 



TRINITAS.— THE OLD BURYING-GROUND. 



177 



Where the dews glisten and the song-birds war- 
ble, 

His dust to dust is laid, 
In Nature's keeping, with no pomp of marble 

To shame his modest shade. 

The forges glow, the hammers all are ringing ; 

Beneath its smoky vale, 
Hard by, the city of his love is swinging 

Its clamorous iron flail. 

But round his grave are quietude and beauty, 
And the sweet heaven above, — 

The fitting symbols of a life of duty 
Transfigured into love ! 



TRINITAS. 

At morn I prayed, " I fain would see 
How Three are One, and One is Three ; 
Read the dark riddle unto me." 

I wandered forth, the sun and air 
I saw bestowed with equal care 
On good and evil, foul and fair. 

No partial favor dropped the rain ;— 
Alike the righteous and profane 
Rejoiced above their heading grain. 

And my heart murmured, "Is it meet 
That blindfold Nature thus should treat 
With equal hand the tares and wheat ? " 

A presence melted through my mood, — 
A warmth, a light, a sense of good, 
Like sunshine through a winter wood. 

I saw that presence, mailed complete 
In her white innocence, pause to greet 
A fallen sister of the street. 

Upon her bosom snowy pure 
The lost one clung, as if secure 
Prom inward guilt or outward lure. 

" Beware ! " I said ; "in this I see 
No gain to her, but loss to thee : 
Who touches pitch defiled must be." 

I passed the haunts of shame and sin, 
And a voice whispered, ' ' Who therein 
Shall these lost souls to Heaven's peace win ? 

" Who there shall hope and health dispense, 
And lift the ladder up from thence 
Whose rounds are prayers of penitence ? " 

I said, "' No higher life they know ; 
These earth-worms love to have it so. 
Who stoops to raise them sinks as low." 

That night with painful care I read 
What Hippo's saint and Calvin said, — 
The living seeking to the dead ! 

In vain I turned, in weary quest, 

Old pages, where (God give them rest !) 

The poor creed-mongers dreamed and guessed. 

And still I prayed, " Lord, let me see 
How Three are One-, and One is Three ; . 
Read the dark riddle unto me ! " 

Then something whispered, " Dost thou pray 
For what thou hast ? This very day 
The Holy Three have crossed thy way. 

12 



" Did not the gifts of sun and air 

To good and ill alike declare 

The all-compassionate Father's care '? 

"In the white soul that stooped to raise 

The lost one from her evil ways, 

Thou saw'st the Christ, whom angels praise ! 

"A bodiless Divinity, 

The still small Voice that spake to thee 

Was the Holy Spirit's mystery ! 

" O blind of sight, of faith how small ! 
Father, and Son, and Holy Call ; — 
This day thou hast denied them all ! 

1 ' Revealed in love and sacrifice, 
The Holiest passed before thine eyes, 
One and the same, in threefold guise. 

" The equal Father in rain and sun, 
His Christ in the good to evil done, 
His Voice in thy soul ; — and the Three are 
One ! " 

I shut my grave Aquinas fast ; 
The monkish gloss of ages past, 
The schoolman's creed aside I cast. 

And my heart answered, "Lord, I see 
How Three are One, and One is Three ; 
Thy riddle hath been read to me ! " 



THE OLD BURYING-GROUND. 

Our vales are sweet with fern and rose, 

Our hills are maple- crowned; 
But not from them our fathers chose 

The village burying-ground. 

The dreariest spot in all the land 

To Death they set apart ; 
With scanty grace from Nature's hand, 

And none from that of Art. 

A winding wall of mossy stone, 

Frost-flung and broken, lines 
A lonesome acre thinly grown 

With grass and wandering vines. 

Without the wall a birch-tree shows 

Its drooped and tasselled head ; 
Within, a stag-horned sumach grows, 

Fern-leafed, with spikes of red. 

There, sheep that graze the neighboring plain 

Like white ghosts come and go, 
The farm-horse drags his fetlock chain, 

The cow-bell tinkles slow. 

Low moans the river from its bed, 

The distant pines reply ; 
Like mourners shrinking from the dead, 

They stand apart and sigh. 

Unshaded smites the summer sun, 

Unchecked the winter blast ; 
The school-girl learns the place to shun, 

With glances backward cast. 

For thus our fathers testified, — 

That he might read who ran, — 
The emptiness of human pride, 

The nothingness of man. 



178 



THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW. 



They dared not plant the grave with flowers, 

Nor dress t he funeral sod, 
Where, with a love as deep as ours, 

They left their dead with (hid. 

The haul and thorny path they kept 

Prom beauty tinned aside ; 
Nor missed they over those who slept 

The grace in die denied. 

Yet still the wilding flowers would blow, 

The golden leaves would fall, 
The seasons come, the seasons go, 

And God I"- good to all. 

Above the graves the blackberry hung 

In bloom and green it- wreath, 
Au<\ harebells swung as if they rung 

The chime- ol peace beneath. 

The beauty Nature loves to share, 

The gifts she hath for all, 
The common light, the common air, 

O'ercrepttl ard's wall. 

It knew the glow of eventide, 

The sunrise and the noon, 
And glorified and sanctified 

It slept beneath the moon. 

With flowers or snow-flakes for its sod, 

Around the seasons ran, 
And evermore the love of <!od 

Rebuked the fear of man. 

We dwell with fears on cither hand, 

Within a daily strife, 
And spectral problems waiting stand 

Before the gates of life. 

The doubts we vainly seek to solve, 

The truths we know, are one ; 
The known and nameless stars revolve 

Around the Central Sun. 

And if we reap as we have sown, 

And take the dole we deal, 
The law of pain is love alone, 

The wounding is to heal. 

Unharmed from change to change we glide, 

We fall as in our dreams ; 
The far-off terror at our side 

A smiling angel seems. 

Secure on God's all-tender heart 

Alike rest great and small ; 
Why fear to lose our little part, 

When he is pledged for all ? 

O fearful heart and troubled brain ! 

Take hope and strength from this, — 
That Nature never hints in vain, 

Nor prophesies amiss. 

Her wild birds sing the same sweet stave, 

Her lights and airs are given 
Alike to playground and the grave ; 

And over both is Heaven. 



THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW. 

Pn-ES of the misty moorlands, 
Voice of the glens and hills ; 

The droning of the torrents, 
The treble of the rills! 



Not the braes of broom and heather, 
Nor the mountains dark with rain, 

Nor maiden bower, nor border tower, 
I la\ e beard j 01 r sweetest strain ! 

Dear to the Lowland reaper. 
And plaided mountain 

To t te Cottage and lie- cast le 

The Scottish pipes are dear ;— 

Swi ii Sounds the ancient pil.mch 
O'er mountain, lech, and -lade; 
Put the sweetest, of all music 

TJn- pipes at Lucknow played. 

Day by day the Indian tiger 

Louder yelled, and nearer crept; 
Round and round the jungle-serpent 

Near and nearer circles swept. 
"Pray for rescue, wives and mothers, — 

Pray to-day ! " the soldi r said ; 
" To-morrow, death 's between us 

And the wrong and shame we dread." 

O, they listened, looked, and waited, 
Till their hope became despair ; 

And the sobs of low bewailing 
Pilled the pauses of their prayer. 

Then up spake a Scottish maiden, 
With her ear unto the ground : 

" Dinna ye hear it V — dinna ye hear it ? 
The pipes o' Havelock sound ! " 

Hushed the wounded man his groaning ; 

Hushed the wife her little ones ; 
Alone they heard the drum-roll 

And the roar of Sepoy guns. 
But to sounds of home and childhood 

The Highland ear was true ; — 
As her mother's cradle-crooning 

The mountain pipes she knew. 

Like the march of soundless music 

Through the vision of the seer, 
More of feeling than of hearing, 

Of the heart than of the ear, 
She knew the droning pibroch, 

She knew the Campbell's call ; 
"Haik ! hear ye no' MacGregor's, — 

The grandest o' them all ! "' 

O, they listened, dumb and breathless, 

And they caught the sound at last ; 
Faint and far beyond the Goomtee 

Rose and fell the piper's blast ! 
Then a burst of wild thanksgiving 

Mingled woman's voice and man's ; 
" < rod be praised ! — the march of Havelock ! 

The piping of the clans ! " 

Louder, nearer, fierce as vengeance. 

Sharp and shrill as swords at strife, 
Came the wild MacGregor's clan-call, 

Stinging all the air to life. 
But when the far- oil dust-cloud 

To plaided legions grew, 
Full tenderly and blithesomely 

The pipes of rescue blew ! 

Round the silver domes of Lucknow, 

Moslem mosque and Pagan shrine, 
Breathed the air to Britons dearest, 

The air of Auld Lang S\ ne. 
O'er the cruel roll of war-drums 

Rose fch d sweet and homelike strain; 
And the tartan clove the turban, 

As the Goomtee cleaves the plain. 

Dear to the corn-land reaper 
And plaided mountaineer, — 



MY PSALM.— LE MARAIS DU CYGNE. 



179 



To the cottage and the castle 
The piper's song is dear. 

Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibroch 
O'er mountain, glen, and glade ; 

But the sweetest of all music 
The Pipes at Lucknow played ! 



MY PSALM. 

I MOURN no more my vanished years : 

Beneath a tender rain, 
An April rain of smiles and tear 

My heart is young again. 

The west-winds blow, and, singing low, 
I hear the glad streams run ; 

The windows of my soul I throw 
Wide open to the sun. 

No longer forward nor behind 

I look in hope or fear ; 
But, grateful, take the good I find, 

The best of now and here. 

I plough no more a desert land, 

To harvest weed and tare ; 
The manna dropping from God's hand 

Rebukes my painful care. 

I break my pilgrim staff — I lay 

Aside the toiling oar ; 
The angel sought so far away 

I welcome at my door. 

The airs of spring may never play 

Among the ripening corn, 
Nor freshness of the flowers of May 

Blow through the autumn morn ; 

Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look 
Through fringed lids to heaven, 

And tin 1 pale aster in the brook 
Shall see its image given ; — 

The woods shall wear their robes of praise. 

The south-wind softly sigh, 
And sweet, calm days in golden haze 

Mcit down the amber sky. 

Not less shall manly deed and word 

Rebuke an age of wrong ; 
The graven flowers that wreath the sword 

Make not the blade less strong. 

But smiting hands shall learn to heal, — 

To build as to destroy ; 
Nor less my heart for others feel 

That I the more enjoy. 

All as God wills, who wisely heeds 

To give or to withhold, 
And knoweth more of ail my needs 

Than all my prayers have told ! 

Enough that blessings undeserved 
Have marked my erring track ; — 

That wheresoe'er my feet have swerved, 
His chastening turned me back ; — 

That more and more a Providence 

Of love is understood, 
Making the springs of tune and sense 

Sweet with eternal good ; — 



That death seems but a covered way 
Which opens into light, 

Wherein no blinded child can stray 
Beyond the Father's sight ; — 

That care and trial seem at last, 
Through Memory's sunset air, 

Like mountain-ranges overpast, 
In purple distance fair ; — 

That all the jarring notes of life 
Seem blending in a psalm, 

And all the angles of its strife 
Slow rounding into calm. 

And so the shadows fall apart, 
And so the west-winds play ; 

And all the windows of my heart 
I open to the day. 



LE MARAIS DTJ CYGNE. 69 

A blush as of roses 

Where rose never grew 
Great drops on the bunch-grass, 

But not of the dew ! 
A taint in the sweet air » 

For wild bees to shun ! 
A stain that shall never 

Bleach out in the sun ! 

Back, steed of the prairies ! 

Sweet song-bird, fly back ! 
Wheel hither, bald vulture ! 

Gray wolf, call thy pack ! 
The foul human vultfrres 

Have feasted and fled ; 
The wolves of the Border 

Have crept from the dead. 

From the hearths of their cabins, 

The fields of their com, 
Unwarned and unweaponed, 

The victims were torn, — 
By the whirlwind of murder 

Swooped up and swept on 
To the low, reedy fen-lands, 

The Marsh of the Swan. 

With a vain plea for mercy 

No stout knee was crooked ; 
In the mouths of the rifles 

Right manly they looked. 
How paled the May sunshine, 

O Marais du Cygne ! 
On death for the strong life, 

On red grass for green ! 

In the homes of their rearing, 

Yet warm with their lives, 
Ye wait the dead only, 

Poor children and wives ! 
Put out the red forge-fire, 

The smith shall not come ; 
Unvoke the brown oxen, 

The ploughman lies dumb. 

Wind slow from the Swan's Marsh, 

O dreary death-train, 
With pressed lips as bloodless 

As lips of the slain ! 
Kiss down the young eyelids. 

Smooth down the gray hairs ; 
Let tears quench the curses 

That burn through your prayers. 



180 



THE ROCK" IN EL GHOR.— ON A PRAYER-BOOK. 



Strong dries, 

Mourn bitter and wild ! 

Wail, desolate woman ! 
\\ eep, Ea1 berless child ! 

lint tli.' grain of God springs up 
From ashes beneath, 

And tin' crown of his harvest 

I life OUt of death. 
Not in vain on the dial 

The shade moves along, 
To point the great contrasts 

Of right and of wrong : 
Free homes and Ere i altars, 

Free prairie and flood, — 

The reeds of the Swan's Marsh, 
Whose bloom is of blood! 

On the lintels of Kansas 

That blood shall not dry ; 
Henceforth the Had Angel 

Shall harmless go by ; 
1 [< nceforth to the sunset, 

Unchecked on her way, 
Shall Liberty follow 

Tiie march of the day. 



"THE ROCK" IN EL GHOR. 

Dead Petra in her hill-tomb sleeps, 
Her stones of emptiness remain ; 

Around her sculptured mystery sweeps 
The lonely waste of Edom's plain. 

From the doomed dwellers in the cleft 
The bow of vengeance turns not back ; 

Of all her myriads none are left 
Along the Wady Mousa's track. 

Clear in the hot Arabian day 

Her arches spring, her statues climb ; 

Unchanged, the graven wonders pay 
No tribute to the spoiler, Time ! 

Unchanged the awful lithograph 
Of power and jlory undertrod, — 

Of nations scattered like the chaff" 
Blown from the threshing-floor of God. 

Yet shall the thoughtful stranger turn 
From Petra's gates, with deeper awe 

To mark afar the burial urn 
Of Aaron on the cliff's of Hor ; 

And where upon its ancient guard 

Thy Rock, El Chor, is standing yet, — 

Looks from its turrets desertwara, 
And keeps the watch that God has set. 

The same as when in thunders loud 
It heard the voice of Cod to man, — 

As when it saw in lire and cloud 
The angels walk in Israel's van ! 

Or when from Ezion-Geber's way 
It saw the long procession rile, 

And heard the Hebrew timbrels play 
The music of the lordly Nile; 

Or saw the tabernacle pause, 
Cloud-bound, by Kadesh Barnea's wells, 

While Moses graved the sacred laws, 

And Aaron swum his golden bells. 

Rock of the desert, prophet-sung ! 

How grew its shadowing pile at length, 
A Bymbol, in the Hebrew tongue, 

Of God's eternal love and strength. 



( ):i lipid' bard and scroll of seer, 

From age to age went down the name, 

Until the Shiloh's promised year, 
And < Ihrist, the Rock of Ages, came ! 

The path of life we walk to-day 

[s strange as thai bhe Hebrews trod; 

We need bhe shadowing rock, as they, — 
We need, like them, bhe guides of < ;.m1. 

Godsend bis angels, < '1 land Fire, 

To lead us o'er the d( sert sand ! 

God give our hearts their long desire, 
His shadow in a wearv land ! 



ON A PRAYER-BOOK, 

WITH ITS FRONTISPIECE, ART SCIIKFFElt'S 
"CHBISTUS CONSOLATOR," AMERICANIZED Br 
TlIF, OMISSION OF Till-; BLACK MAN. 

Ary SCHEFFER ! when beneath thine eye, 
Touched with the light that cometh from above, 
Grew the sweet picture of the dear Lord's love, 

No dream hadst thou that Christian hands would 

tear 
Therefrom the token of his equal care, 

And make thy symbol of his truth a lie ! 
The poor, dumb slave whose shackles fall away 

In his compassionate gaze, grubbed smoothly 
out, 

To mar no more the exercise devout 
Of sleek oppression kneeling down to pray 
Where the great oriel stains the Sabbath day ! 
Let whoso can before such praying-books 

Kneel on his velvet cushion ; I, for one, 

Would sooner bow, a Parsee, to the sun, 
Or tend a prayer-wheel in Thibetar brooks, 

Or beat a dram on Yedo's temple-floor. 

No falser idol man has bowed before, 
In Indian groves or islands of the sea, 

Than that which through the quaint-carved 
Gothic door 
Looks forth, — a Church without humanity ! 

Patron of pride, and prejudice, and wrong, — 

The rich man's charm and fetish of the strong, 
The Eternal Fulness meted, clipped, and shorn, 
The seamless robe of equal mercy torn, 
The dear Christ hidden from his kindred flesh, 
And, in his poor ones, crucified afresh ! 
Better the simple Lama scattering wide, 

Where sweeps the storm Alechan's steppes 
along, 

1 lis paper horses for the lost to ride, 

And wearying Buddha with his prayers to make 
The figures living for the traveller's sake, 
Than he who hopes with cheap praise to beguile 
Tin ear of God, dishonoring man the while ; 
Who dreams the pearl gate's hinges, rusty grown, 
Are moved by flattery's oil of tongue alone ; 
That in the scale Eternal Justice 1 >> 
The generous deed weighs less than selfish 

prayers, 
And words intoned with graceful unction move 
The Eternal Goodness more than lives of truth 

and 1<>\ e. 
Alas, the ( Jhurch ! — The reverend head of Jay, 
Enhaloed with its saintly silvered hair, 
Adorns no more the places of her prayer ; 
And brave young Tyng, too early called away, 
Troubles the Hainan of her courts no more 
Like fche just Hebrew at the Assyrian's door; 
And her sweet ntual, beautiful but dead 
As the dry husk from which the grain is shed, 
And holy hymns from which the life devout 
Of saints and martyrs has well-nigh gone out, 



TO J. T. P.— THE PALM-TREE. 



181 



Like candles dying in exhausted air, 
For Sabbath use in measured grists are ground ; 
And, ever while the spiritual mill goes round, 
Between the upper and the nether stones, 
Unseen, unheard, the wretched bondman 
groans, 
And urges his vain plea, prayer-smothered, an- 
them-drowned ! 

heart of mine, keep patience ! — Looking forth, 
As from the Mount of Vision, I behold, 

Pure, just, and free, the Church of Christ on 
earth, — 
The 'in! i \ i's dream, the golden age foretold ! 

And found, at last, the mystic Graal I see, 

Brimmed with His blessing, pass from lip to 

lip 
In sacred pledge of human fellowship ; 
And over all the songs of angels hear, — 
Sungs of the love that casteth out all fear, — 
Songs of the Gospel of Humanity ! 
Lo ! in the midst, with the same look he wore, 
Healing and blessing on 'Jenesaret's shore, 
Folding together, with the all-tender might 

Of his great love, the dark hands and the white, 
Stands the Consoler, soothing every pain, 

Making all burdens light, and breaking every 
chain. 



TO J. T. P. 

ON. A BLANK LEAF OF " POEMS PRINTED, NOT 
PUBLISHED." 

Well thought ! who would not rather hear 
The songs to Love and Friendship sung 
Than those which move the stranger's tongue, 
And feed his unselected ear ? 

Our social joys are more than fame ; 
Life withers in the public look. 
Why mount the pillory of a book, 
Or barter comfort for a name ? 

Who in a house of glass would dwell, 
With curious eyes at every pane ? 
To ring him in and out again, 
Who wants the public crier's bell ? 

To see the angel in one's way, 
Who waits to play the ass's part, — 
Bear on his back the wizard Art, 
And in his service speak or bray? 

And who his manly locks would shave, 
And quench the eyes of common sense, 
To share the noisy recompense 
That mocked the shorn and blinded slave ? 

The heart has needs beyond the head, 
And, starving in the plenitude 
Of strange gifts, craves its common food, — 
Our human nature's daily bread. 

We are but men : no gods are we, 
To sit in mid -heaven, cold and bleak, 
Each separate, on his painful peak, 
Thin-cloaked iu self-complacency ! 

Better his lot whose axe is swung 
In Wartburg woods, or that poor gild's 
Who by the Ilm her spindle whirls 
And sings the songs that Luther sung, 

Than his who, old, and cold, and vain, 
At Weimer sat, a demigod, 
And bowed with Jove's imperial nod 
His votaries iu and out again ! 



Ply, Vanity, thy winged feet ! 
Ambition, hew thy rocky stair ! 
Who envies him who feeds on air 
The icy splendor of his seat ? 

I see your Alps, above me, cut 
The dark, cold sky ; and dim and lone 
I see ye sitting, — stone on stone, — 
With human senses dulled and shut. 

I could not reach you, if I would, 
Nor sit among your cloudy shapes; 
And (spare the fable of the grapes 
And fox) I would not if I could. 

Keep to your lofty pedestals ! 
The safer plain below I choose : 
Who never wins can rarely lose, 
Who never climbs as rarely falls. 

Let such as love the eagle's scream 
Divii le with him his home of ice : 
For me shall gentler notes suffice, — 
The valley-song of bird and stream ; 

The pastoral bleat, the drone of bees, 
The flail-beat chiming far away, 
The cattle-low, at shut of day. 
The voice of God in leaf aud breeze ! 

Then lend thy hand, my wiser friend, 

And help me to the vales below, 

(In truth, I have not far to go,) 

Where sweet with flowers the fields extend. 



THE PALM-TREE. 

Is it the palm, the cocoa-palm, 

On the Indian Sea, by the isles of balm? 

Or is it a ship in the breezeless calm V 

A ship whose keel is of palm beneath, 
Whose ribs of palm have a palm-bark sheath, 
And a rudder of palm it steereth with. 

Branches of palm are its spars and rails, 
Fibres of palm are its woven sails, 
And the rope is of palm that idly trails ! 

What does the good ship bear so well ? 
The cocoa-nut with its stony shell, 
And the milky sap of its inner cell. 

What are its jars, so smooth and fine, 

But hollowed nuts, filled with oil and wine, 

And the cabbage that ripens under the Line ? 

Who smokes his nargileh, cool and calm ? 

The master, whose cunning and skill could charm 

Cargo and ship from the bounteous palm. 

In the cabin he sits on a palm-mat soft, 
From a beaker of palm his drink is quaffed, 
And a palm-thatch shields from the sun aloft ! 

His dress is woven of palmy strands, 

And he holds a palm-leaf scroll in his hands, 

Traced with the Prophet's wise commands ! 

The turban folded about his head 

Was daintily wrought of the palm-leaf braid, 

And the fan that cools him of palm was made. 

Of threads of palm was the carpet spun 
Whereon he kneels when the day is done, 
And the forehead of Islam are bowed as one ! 



182 



LINES.— THE RED RIVER VOYAGEUR.— KENOZA LAKE. 



To him the palm is a gift <li\ ine, 
Wherein all uses of man combine, — 
House, ai d raiment, and food, and wine ! 

in the hour of bis great release, 
His need of the palm shall only cease 
With the shroud wherein he lieth in peace. 

" Allah il Allah ! " he sings his psalm, 
On the Indian Sea. by the isles of balm; 
"Thanks to Allah who gives the palm ! " 



LINES, 



READ AT Till- BOSTON CELEBRATION OF THE 
HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH 
dl' ROBERT BURNS, 25TH LST .MO., 1859. 

How .sweetly eome the holy psalms 

From saints and martyrs down, 
Tin- waving of triumphal palms 

Above t in 1 t horny crown ! 
The choral praise, the chanted prayers 

From harps by angels strung, 
The hunted Cameron's mountain airs, 

The hymns that Luther sung ! 

Yet, jarring not the heavenly notes, 

The sounds of earth are heard, 
As through the open minster floats 

The song of breeze and bird ! 
Not less the wonder of the sky 

That daisies bloom below ; 
The brook sings on, though loud and high 

The cloudy organs blow ! 

And, if the tender ear be jarred 

That, haply, hears by turns 
The saintly harp of Olney's bard, 

The pastoral pipe of Burns, 
No discord mars His perfect plan 

Who gave them both a tongue ; 
For he who sings the love of man 

The love of God hat<; sung ! 

To-day be every fault forgiven 

Of him in whom we joy ! 
We take, with thanks, the gold of Heaven 

And leave the earth's alloy. 
Be ours his music as of spring, 

His sweetness as of flowers, 
The songs the bard himself might sing 

I D holier ears than ours. 

Sweet airs of love and home, the hum 

Of household melodies, 
Gome singing, as the robins eome 

To sing in door-van I i 
And, heart to heart, two nations lean, 

No rival wreaths to twine, 
But blending in eternal gri 

The holly and the jnue ! 



THE RED RIVER VOYAGEUR. 

( >i r ami in the river is winding 
The links of its long, red chain 

Through belts of dusky pine-land 
And gusty leagues of plain. 

Only, at times, a smoke-wreath 

With tie' drifting cloud rack joins, — 

'I'll- smoke of the hunting-lodges 
Of the wild Assiniboins ! 



Drearily blows the north-wind 
Prom the land of ice and snow ; 

The eyes that look are weary, 
And heavy the hands that row. 

And with one foot on the water, 

And one upon the shore, 
Tin' Angel of Shadow gives warning 

That day shall be no more. 

Is it the clang of wild-geese? 

Is it the Indian's yell, 
That lends to the voire of i he north-wind 

The tones of a far-off bell ? 

The voyagonr smiles as he listens 
To the sound that grows apace; 

Well he knows the vesper ringing 
Of the bells of St. Boniface. 

The bells of the Roman Mission, 
That call from their turrets twain, 

To the boatman on the river, 
To the hunter on the plain ! 

Even so in our mortal journey 
The bitter north- winds blow, 

And thus upon life's Red River 
Our hearts, as oarsmen, row. 

And when the Angel of Shadow 
Rests his feet on wave and shore, 

And our eyes grow dim with watching 
And our hearts faint at the oar, 

Happy is he who heareth 

The signal of his release 
In the bells of the Holy City, 

The chimes of eternal peace ! 



KENOZA LAKE. 

As Adam did in Paradise, 
To-day the primal right we claim : 

Fair mirror of the woods and skies, 
We give to thee a name. 

Lake of the pickerel ! — let no more 

The echoes answer back, " Great Pond," 

But sweet Kenoza, from thy shore 
And watching hills beyond, 

Let Indian ghosts, if such there lie 
Who ply unseen their shadowy lines, 

Call back the ancient name to thee, 
As with the voice of pines. 

The shores we trod as barefoot boys, 
The nutted woods we wandered through. 

To friendship, love, and social joys 
We consecrate anew. 

Here shall the tender song be sung, 
And memory's dirges soft and low, 

And wit shall sparkle on the tongue, 
And mirth shall overflow, 

Harmless as summer lightning plays 
From a low, hidden cloud by night, 

A light to set the hills ablaze, 
But not a bolt to smite. 

In sunny South and prairied West 
Are exiled hearts remembering still, 

As bees their hive, as birds their nest^ 
The homes of Haverhill. 



TO G. B. C— THE SISTERS.— LINES. 



183 



They join us in our rites to-day ; 

Ami, listening, we may hear, ere long, 
From inland lake and ocean bay, 

The echoes of our song. 

Kenoza ! o'er no sweeter lake 

Shall morning break or noon-cloud sail, 
No fairer face than thine shall take 

The sunset's golden veil. 

Long be it, eve the tide of trade 

Shall break with harsh-resounding din 

The quiet of thy hanks of shade, 
And hills that fold thee in. 

Still let thy woodlands hide the hare, 
The shy loon sound his trumpet-note, 

Wing-weary from his fields of air, 
The wild-goose on thee float. 

Tn\ peace rebuke our feverish stir, 
Thy beauty our deforming strife ; 

Thy woods and waters minister 
The healing of their life. 

And sinless Mirth, from care released, 
Behold, unawed, thy mirrored sky, 

Smiling as smiled on ( 'ana's feast 
The Master's loving eye. 

And when the summer day grows dim, 
And light mists walk thy mimic sea, 

Revive in us the thought of Him 
Who walked on Galilee ! 



TO G. B. C. 

So spake Esaias : so, in words of flame, 
Tekoa's prophet-herdsman smote with blame 
The traffickers in men, and put to shame, 

All earth and heaven before, 
The sacerdotal robbers of the poor. 

All the dread Scripture lives for thee again. 
To smite like lightning on the hands profane 
Lifted to bless the slave-whip and the chain. 

Once more the old Hebrew tongue 
Bends with the shafts of God a bow new-strung ! 

Take up the mantle which the prophets wore 
Warn with their warnings, — show the Christ once 

more 
Bound, scourged, and crucified in his blameless 

poor ; 
And shake above our land 
The unquenched bolts that blazed in Hosea's 

hand : 

Not vainly shalt thou cast upon our years 
The solemn burdens of the Orient seers, 
And smite with truth a guilty nation's ears. 

Mightier was Luther's word 
Than Seckingen's mailed arm or Hutton's sword ! 



THE SISTERS. 

A PICTURE BY BARRY. 

The shade for me, but over thee 
The lingering sunshine still ; 

As, smiling, to the silent stream 
Comes down the singing rill. 



So come to me, my little one, — 
My years with thee I share, 

And mingle with a sister's love 
A mother's tender care. 

But keep the smile upon thy lip, 

The trust upon thy brow ; 
Since for the dear one God hath called 

We have an angel now. 

Our mother from the fields of heaven 

Shall still her ear incline ; 
Nor need we fear her human love 

Is less for love divine. 

The songs are sweet they sing beneath 

The trees of life so fair, 
But sweetest of the songs of heaven 
Shall be her children's prayer. 

Then, darling, rest upon my breast, 
And teach my heart to lean 

With thy sweet trust upon the arm 
Which folds us both unseen ! 



LINES, 

FOR THE AGRICULTURAL AND HORTICULTURAL 
EXHIBITION AT AMESBURY AND SALISBURY, 

SEPT. 28, 185S. 

This day, two hundred years ago. 
The wild grape by the river's side, 

And tasteless groundnut trailing low, 
The table of the woods supplied. 

Unknown the apple's red and gold, 
The blushing tint of peach and pear ; 

The mirror of the Powow told 
No tale of orchards ripe and rare. 

Wild as the fruits he scorned to till, 
These vales the idle Indian tio 1 ; 

Nor knew the glad, creative skill, — 
The joy of him who toils with God. 

O Painter of the fruits and flowers ! 

We thank thee for thy wise design 
Whereby these human hands of ours 

In Nature's garden work with thine. 

And thanks thau from our daily need 
The joy of simple faith is born ; 

That he who smites the summer weed, 
May trust thee for the autumn corn. 

Give fools their gold, and knaves their power ; 

Let fortune's bubbles rise and fall ; 
Who sows a field, or trains a flower, 

Or plants a tree, is more than all. 

For he who blesses most is blest ; 

And God and man shall own his worth 
Who toils to leave as his bequest 

An added beauty to the earth. 

And, soon or late, to all that sow, 
The time of harvest shall be given ; 

The flower shall bloom, the fruit shall grow, 
If not on earth, at last in heaven. 



184 



THE PREACHER. 



THE PREACHER. 

I rs '.\ Lndows Sashing fco t be sky, 
Bern I i sand roofs of brown, 

Par down t he vale, mj friend and 1 
Beheld the old and quiet town ; 

The ghosi ly sails that out at sea 

Flapped their white wings of mystery, 
bches glimmering in the sun, 

Aiul bhe low wooded capes that run 

Into the sea mist, north and south ; 

The sand bluffs at the river's month ; 

The swinging chain- bridge, and, afar, 

The foam line of bhe harbor- bar. 

Over the woods and meadow-lands 

A crimson tinted shadow lay 

<M clouds through which the setting day 

Flung a slant glory Ear away. 
It glittered on the wet sea-sands, 

1 1 flamed upon the city's panes, 
Smote the white sails of ships that wore 
Outward or in, and glided oer 

The steeples with their veering vanes! 

Awhile my friend with rapid search 
O'erran the landscape. " Yonder spire 
Over gray mot's, a shaft of fire ; 
What is it, pray ?"— "The Whitefield Church ! 
Walled about by its basement stones, 
There rest the marvellous prophet's hones." 
Then as our homeward way we walked, 
Of the great preacher's life we talked ; 
And through the mystery of our theme 
The outward glory seemed to stream, 
And Nature's self interpreted 
The doubtful record of the dead ; 
And every level beam that smote 
The sails upon the dark afloat, 
A symbol of the light became 
Which touched the shadows of our blame 
With tongues of Pentecostal flame. 

Over the root's of the pioneers 

Gathers the moss of a hundred years ; 

On man and his works has passed the change 

Which needs must be in a century's range. 

The land lies open and warm in the sun, 

Anvils clamor and mill-wheels run, — 

Flocks mi the hillsides, herds on the plain, 

The wilderness gladdened with fruit and grain ! 

But the living faith of the settlers old 

A dead profession their children hold; 

To the lust of office and greed of trade 

A si pping-stone is the altar made. 

The ( 'iiureh, to place and power the door. 

Rebukes the sin of the world no more, 

es it- Lord in the homeless poor. 
Everywhere is the grasping hand. 
And eag i adding of land to land ; 
And earth, which seemed to the lathers meant 
But as a pilgrim's wayside tent, — 
A nightlj shelter to told away 
When ill. Lord should call at the break of day, — 
Solid and steadfast seems to be, 
And Time litis forgotten Eternity ! 

But fresh and green from the rotting roots 
Of primal forests the young growth shoots; 
Prom I of the old t he new proceeds. 

And the life of truth from the rot of creeds : 
On the ladder of (hid, which upward leads, 
The step, of re human needs. 

For his jud bill are a mighty deep, 

And the eyes of his providence never sleep : 
When the nighi is darkest be gives the morn ; 
When the famine is sorest, the wine and corn! 



In the church of the wilderness Edwards wrought, 

Shaping his creed at the forge of though! ; 

And with Thor's own hammer welded and bent 

The iron links of his argument, 

Which strove to grasp in its mighty span 

The purpose of (hid and t he fate of man ! 

Yet faithful s1 ill, in his dailj round 

To the weak, and the poor, and sin-sick found. 

The schoolman's lore and the casuist's art 

Drew warmth and life from his fervent, heart. 

1 lad he not seen in t he sold aides 

Of his deep and dark Northampton woods 

A vision of Love about him EaJ 

Not the blinding splendor which fell on Saul, 

But the tenderer glory that rests on tie in 

Who walk in t le New Jerusalem. 

Where never the sun nor moon are known, 

But the Lord .and his love are the light alone! 

And watching the sweet, still countenance 

Of the wife of his bosom rapt in trance, 

Had he not treasured each broken word 

Of the mystical wonder seen tin d heard; 

And loved th'' beautiful dreamer more 

That thus to the desert of earth she bore 

Clusters of Esehol from Canaan's shore ? 

As the barley-winnower, holding with pain 
Aloft in waiting his chaff and grain, 
,Io\ fully welcomes the far-off breeze 
Sounding the pine-tree's slender keys, 
So he who had waited long to hear 
The sound of the Spirit drawing near, 
Like that which the son of Iddo heard 
When the feet of angels the myrtles stirred, 
Felt the answer of prayer, at last, 
As over his church the afflatus passed, 
Breaking its sleep as breezes break 
To sun-bright ripples a stagnant lake. 

At first a tremor of silent fear, 

The creep of the flesh at danger near, 

A vague foreboding and discontent, 

Over the hearts of the people went. 

All nature warned in sounds and signs : 

The wind in the tops of the forest pines 

In the name of the Highest called to prayer, 

As the muezzin calls from the minaret stair. 

Through ceiled chambers of secret sin 

Sudden and strong the light shone in; 

A guilty sense of his neighbor's needs 

Startled the man of title-deeds ; 

The trembling hand of the worldling shook 

The dust of years from the Holy Book ; 

And the psalms of David, forgotten long, 

Took the place of the scoffer's song. 

The impulse spread like the outward course 
Of waters moved by a central force ; 
The tide of spiritual life rolled down 
From inland mountains to seaboard town. 

Prepared and ready the altar stands 

Waiting the prophet's outstretched hands 

And prayer availing, to downward call 

The fiery answer in view of all. 

B arts tire like wax: in the furnace, who 

Shall mould, and shape, and east them anew? 

Lo l by the Merrimack WHITEFIELD stands 

In t • temple that never was made by hands, — 

Curtains of azure, and crystal wall. 

And dome of the .sunshine over till ! — 

A homeless pilgrim, with dubious name 

Blown about on the winds ol fame; 

Now as an tinsel of blessing classi '1, 

And now as a mad enthusiast. 

Call I in his youth to sound and gauge 

The moral lapse of his race and age, 

And, sharp as truth, the contrast draw 

Of human frailty and perfect law ; 



THE PREACHER. 



185 



Possessed by the our dread thought that lent 

■nl fco his fiery temperament, 
Qp and down the world he went, 
A John the Baptist crying, — Repent ! 

No perfect whole can our nature make ; 
Here or there the circle will break; 
The orb of life, as it takes the light 
On one side, leaves the other in night. 
Never was saint so good and a 
As to give no chance at St. Peter's gate 
For the plea of the Devil's advocate. 
So, incomplete by his being's law, 
The marvellous preacher had his flaw : 
With step unequal, and lame with faults, 
His shade' on the path of History halts. 

Wisel.x and well said the Eastern bard : 
Fear is easy, hut love is hard, — 
EJasj to glow with the Santon's rage, 
And walk on the Meccan pilgrimage ; 
But be is greatest and best who can 
Worship Allah by loving man. 

Thus he. — to whom, in the painful stress 

Of zeal on tire from its own excess, 

Heat in s im I so vast and earth so small 

That man v. since God was all, — 

Forgot, as the best at times have done, 

That the love of the Lord and of man are one. 

Little to him whose feet unshod 
The thorny path of the desert trod, 

< anlr-, ii|' pain, so it led tn I rod. 

Seemed the hunger-pang and the poor man's 
wrong, 

The weak ones trodden beneath the strong. 

Should the worm be chooser V — the clay with- 
stand 

The shaping will of the potter's hand'? 

In the Indian fable Arjoon hears 
The scorn of a god rebuke his fears: 
"Spare thy pity ! " Krishna saith : 
" Not in thy sword is the power of death ! 
All is illusion, — loss but seems ; 
Pleasure and pain are only dreams; 
Who deems he slayeth doth not kill ; 
Who counts as slain is living still. 
Strike, nor fear thy blow is crime; 
Nothing dies lint the cheats of time; 
Slain or slayer, small the odds 
To each, immortal as India's gods ! " 

So by Savannah's banks of shade, 
The stones of his mission the preacher laid 
On the heart of the negro crushed and rent, 
And made of his blood the wall's cement; 
Bade the slave-ship speed from coast to coast 
Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost ; 
And begged, for the love of Christ, the gold 
Coined from the hearts in its groaning hold. 
What could it matter, more or less 
Of stripes, and hunger, and weariness? 
Living or dying, bond or free, 
What was time to eternity 'i 

Alas for the preacher's cherished schemes ! 
Mission and church are now but dreams ; 
Nor prayer nor fasting availed the plan 
To honor < rod through the wrong of man. 

< )F all his labors no trace remains 

Save the bondman lifting his hands in chains. 
The woof he wove in the righteous warp 
of freedom-loving Oglethorpe, 
Clothes with curses the goodly land, 
Changes its greenness and bloom to sand; 
And a century's lapse reveals once more 
The slave-ship stealing bo Georgia's shore. 
Father of Light ! how blind is he 



Who sprinkles the altar he rears to Thee 
With the blood and tears of humanity ! 

He erred : Shall we count his gifts as naught ? 
Was the work of God in him unwrought ? 
The servant may through his deafness err, 
And blind may be (bid's messenger; 
Bui th errand is sure they go upon, — 
The word is spoken, the deed is done. 
Was tin- Hebrew Cmpleless fair and good 
That Solomon bowed to gods of wood ''. 
For his tempted heart and wandering feet, 
Were tin songs of David less pure and sweet? 
So in light and shadow the preacher went, 
(bill's erring and human instrument ; 
And the hearts of the people where he passed, 
Swayed as the reeds sway in the blast. 
Under the spell of a voice which took 
In its compass the flow of Siloa's brook, 
And the mystical chime of the bells of gold 
On the ephod's hem of the priest of old, — 
Now the roll of thunder, and now the awe 
Of the trumpet heard in the Mount of Law. 

A solemn fear on the listening crowd 
Fell like the shadow of a cloud. 
The sailor reeling from out the ships 
Whose masts stood thick in the river-slips, 
Felt the jest and the curse die on his lips. 
Listened the fisherman rude and hard, 
The calker rough from the builder's yard, 
The man of the market left his load, 
The teamster leaned on his bending goad, 
Tiie maiden, and youth beside her, felt 
Their hearts in a closer union melt, 
And saw the flowers of their love in bloom 
Down the endless vistas of life to come. 
Old age sat feebly brushing away 
From his ears the scanty locks of gray ; 
And careless boyhood, living the free 
Unconscious life of bird and tree, 
Suddenly wakened to a sense 
Of sin and its guilty consequence. 
It was as if an angel's voice 
Called the listeners up for their final choice; 
As if a strong hand rent apart 
The veils of sense from soul and heart, 
Showing in light ineffable 
The joys of heaven and woes of hell ! 
All about in the misty air 
The hills seemed kneeling in silent prayer; 
The rustle of leaves, the moaning sedge, 
The water's lap on its gravelled edge, 
The wailing pines, and, far and faint, 
The wood-dove's note of sad complaint, 
To the solemn voice of the preacher lent 
An undertone as of low lament ; 
And the rote of the sea from its sandy coast 
On the easterly wind, now heard, now lost, 
Seemed the murmurous sound of the judgment 
host. 

Yet wise men doubted, and good men wept. 
As that storm of passion above them swept, 
And, comet-like, adding flame to flame, 
Th ■ priests of the new Evangel came, — 
Davenport, flashing upon the crowd, 
Charged like summer's electric cloud, 
Xow holding the listener still as death 
With terrible warnings under breath, 
Xow shouting for joy, as if he viewed 
The vision of Heaven's beatitude ! 
And Celtic Tennant, his long coat bound 
Like a monk's with leathern girdle round, 
Wild with tin- toss of unshorn hair, 
And wringing of hands, and eyes a glare, 
Groaning under the world's despair ! 
Grave pastors, grieving their flocks to lose, 
Prophesied to the empty pews 



186 



THE QUAKER ALUMNT. 



That gourds would wither, and mushr us die, 

And noisiest fountains run soonest dry, 

Like the pring bhal gushed in Newbury Street, 

I fader t he t ramp of the ea rl hquake's 1'out, 

\ ilver shaft in the air and light, 

For a Bingle day, then Lost in night, 

Leaving only, its place to tell, 

Sandy fissure and sulphurous smell. 

With zeal wing-clipped and white heat cool, 

Moved by the spirit in grooves of rule, 

No longer harried, and cropped, and fleeced, 

Flogged bj sheriff and cursed by priest, 

But by wiser counsels lefl a I 

To sel ble quietly on his lees, 

And, self-concentred, to count as done 

The work which las fathers scarce begun, 

In silent protest of lei t big alone, 

The Quaker kept the wa\ of bis own, — 

A imii conductor among the w Ires, 

With ci iroof to fires. 

And quite unable to mend his pace 

To catch the falling manna of grace, 

He hugged the closer his lit lie store 

Of faith, and silently prayed Eoi more. 

And vague of creed and barren of rite, 

But holding, as in his Master's sigl 

Act and thought to the inner light. 

The round of his simple duties walked. 

And strove to live what the others talked. 

And who shall marvel if evil went 
Step by step with the good intent. 
And with love and meekness, side by side, 
Lust of the flesh and spiritual pride ? — 
That passionate longings and fancies vain 
Set the heart on fire and crazed the brain ? — 
That over the holy oracles 
Folly sported with cap and bells'? — 
That goodly women and learned men 
Marvelling told with tongue and pen 
How unweaned children chirped like birds 
Texts of Scripture and solemn words. 
Like the infant seers of the rocky glens 
In the Pity de Dome of wild Cevennes : 
Or baby Lamas wdio pray and preach 
From Tartar cradles in Buddha's speech ? 

In the war which Truth or Freedom wages 

With impious fraud and the wrong of ages, 

Hate and malice and self-love mar 

The notes of triumph with painful jar, 

And the helping angels turn a 

Their sorrowing faces the shame to hide. 

Never on custom's oildd grooves 

The world to a higher level moves, 

But grates ami grinds with friction hard 

On granite boulder and flinty shard. 

The heart must bleed before it feels, 

The pool be troubled before it heals ; 

Ever bj right must gain, 

Every good have its birth of pain ; 

The active Virtues blush to find 

Tin- Vices wearing their badge behind, 

And Graces and Charities led the fire 

Wherein the sins of the age i xpire : 

The fiend still rends as of old he rent 

The tortured body from which he- went. 

But Tim- tests all. In the over-drift 
And (low of the Nile, with its annual gilt, 
Who cares for the Hadji's relics sunk V 
Who thinks of the drowned out Coptic monk V 
The tidi i pie's stones, 

And scatten tb sacred ibis-bones, 

away from the valley-land 
That Arab robber, the wandering sand, 
Moistens the fields that know no ra 
Fringes bhe deseri with belts of grain, 
And bread to the sower brings again. 



So tin- Heed (if emotion deep and strong 
Troubled the land as it swept a 
I !ut left a result of holier lives, 
Tenderer mothers and worthier wives. 

The husband and lather whose children fled 
And >ad wife wept when his drunken tread 
Frightened peace from his roof-tree's shade. 
And a rock of offence his hearthstone ma 
In a strength that was not his own, b( e,an 
To rise from the brute's to the plane 01 man. 

old friends embraced, long I eld apart 

By evil counsel and pride of heart ; 

And penitence saw through mist] tears, 

In the how of hope on ils cloud of fears, 
The promise of Heaven's eternal years,— 

The peace of Cod for the world's annoy,— 

I Scanty for ashes, and oil of joy ! 

Under the church of Federal Street, 
Fuder lii ead el' its Sabbal h 
Walled about by its basement stones, 

Lie the marvellous preachei 's boms. 

No saintly honors to them are shown, 

No sign nor miracle have they known ; 

But he who passes the ancient church 

Stops m the shade of its belfry- porch. 

And ponders the wonderful life of him 

Who lies at rest in that charnel dim. 

Long shall the traveller strain his eye 

From the railroad car, as it plunges by, 

And the vanishing town behind him search 

For the slender spire of the Whitefield ( Ihurch ; 

And feci for one moment the ghosts of trade, 

And fashion, and folly, and pleasure laid, 

By the thought of that life of pure intent, 

That voice of warning yet eloquent, 

Of one on the errands of angels sent. 

And if where he labored the flood of sin 

Like a tide from the harbor-bar sets in, 

And over a life of time and sense 

The church-spires lift their vain defence, 

As if to scatter the bolts of God 

With the points of Calvin's thunder-rod, — 

Still, as the gem of its civic crown, 

Precious beyond the world's renown. 

His memory hallows the ancient town ! 



THE QUAKER ALUMNI. 70 

FROM the well -springs of Hudson, the sea.clitl's 

of Maine, 
Crave nun, sober matrons, you gather again ; 
And, with hearts warmer grown as your heads 

grow more cool, 
Flay over the old game of going to school. 

All your strifes and vexatious, your whims and 
complaints, 

(You were not saints yourselves, if the children 

of saints ! ) 
All your petty self-seekings and rivalries done, 
Round the dear Alma Mater your hearts beat as 

one ! 

■How widely soe'er you have strayed from tie 

lefl,' 

Though your "thee" has grown "you," and 

your drab blue and gold, 
To the old friendly speech and the garb's sobei 

form. 
Like the heart of Argyle to the tartan, you 

warm. 

But, the first greetings over, you glance round 

the hall ; 
Voui hearts call the roll, but they answer not all : 



THE QUAKER ALUMNI. 



187 



Through the turf green above them the dead can- All the foregleams of wisdom in santon and sage, 

not hear ; In prophet and priest, are our true heritage. 

Name by name, in the silence, falls sad as a tear ! 

The Word which the reason of Plato discerned ; 
In love, let us trust, they were summoned so soon The truth, as whose symbol the Mithra-lire 
From the morning of life, while we toil through burned ; 

its noon ; The soul of the world which the Stoic but 

They were frail like ourselves, they had needs i guessed, 

like our own, I In the Light Universal the Quaker confessed ! 

And they rest as we rest in God's mercy alone. 

No honors of war to our worthies belong ; 
Unchanged by our changes of spirit and frame, j Their plain stem of life never flowered into song; 
Past, now, and henceforward the Lord is the j But the fountains they opened still gush by the 

same ; way, 

Though we sink in the darkness, his arms break : And the world for their healing is better to-day. 

our fall, 
Ami in death as in life, he is Father of all ! He who lies where the minster's groined arches 

curve down, 
We are older : our footsteps, so light in the play j To the tomb-crowded transept of England's re- 
Of the far-away school-time, move slower to- nown, 

day ; — The glorious essayist, by genius enthroned, 

Here a beard touched with frost, there a bald, Whose pen as a sceptre the Muses all owned, — 

shining crown, 

And beneath the cap's border gray mingles with „ T . ,, , ,, , -,, ,, „ ,, , ■ , ■ 

i „,„, ' s j a y\ i 10 through the world s pantheon walked in his 

pride, 
But faith should be cheerful, and trust should be getting new statues up thrusting old ones aside, 

And in fiction the pencils or history dipped, 



glad, 



To gild o'er or blacken each saint in his crypt, — 



And our follies and sins, not our years, make us 

- 
Should the heart closer shut as the bonnet grows \ How vainly he labored to sully with blame 

The white bust of Penn, in the niche of his 

fame ! 
Self-will is self-wounding, perversity blind : 
On himself fell the stain for the Quaker designed ! 



prim, 

And the face grow in length as the hat grows in 
brim ? 



Life is brief, duty grave ; but, with rain-folded 

wings, 
Of yesterday's sunshine the grateful heart sings ; 
And we, of all others, have reason to pay 
The tribute of thanks, and rejoice on our way ; 

For the counsels that turned from the follies of 

youth; 
For the beauty of patience, the whiteness of 

truth ; 
For the wounds of rebuke, when love tempered 

its edge ; 
For the household's restraint, and the discipline's 

hedge ; 

For the lessons of kindness vouchsafed to the 

least 
Of the creatures of God, whether human or 

beast, 
Bringing hope ±o the poor, lending strength to 

the frail, 
In the lanes of the city, the slave-hut, and jail ; 

For a womanhood higher and holier, by all 

Her knowledge of good, than was Eve ere her 

fall,— 
Whose task-work of duty moves lightly as play, 
Serene as the moonlight and warm as the day ; 

And, yet more, for the faith which embraces the 

whole, 
Of the creeds of the ages the life and the soul, 
Wherein letter and spirit the same channel run, 
And man has not severed what God has made 

one ! 

For a sense of the (Joodness revealed everywhere, 
As sunshine impartial, and free as the air; 
For a tnisi in humanity, Heathen or Jew, 
And a hope for all darkness The Light shineth 
through. 

Who scoffs at our birthright ? — the words of the 

seers, 
A.nd the songs of the bards in the twilight of 

years. 



For the sake of his true-hearted father before 
him ; 

For the sake of the dear Quaker mother that bore 
him ; 

For the sake of his gifts, and the works that out- 
live him, 

And his brave words for freedom, we freely for- 
give him ! 

There are those who take note that our numbers 

are small, — 
New Gibbons who write our decline and our fall ; 
But the Lord of the seed-field takes care of his 

own, 
And the world shall yet reap what our sowers 

have sown ! 

The last of the sect to his fathers may go, 

Leaving only his coat for some Barnnm to show; 

But the truth will outlive him, and broaden with 
years, 

Till the false dies away, and the wrong disap- 
pears. 

Nothing fails of its end. Out of sight sinks the 

stone, 
In the deep sea of time, but the circles sweep on. 
Till the low-rippled murmurs along the shores 

run. 
And the dark and dead waters leap glad in the 

sun. 

Meanwhile shall we learn, in our ease, to forget 
To the martyrs of Truth and of Freedom our 

debt?— 
Hide their words out of sight, like the garb that 

wore, 
And for Barclay's Apology offer one more? 

Shall we fawn round the priestcraft that glutted 

the shears, 
And Ees1 lone I the stocks with our grandfathers' 

ears ? — . 



188 



BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE. 



Talk of Woolman's unsoundness ?■ count Penn Forgive me, dear Mends, if my vagrant thoughts 

heterodox ? seem 

And take Cotton Mather Ln place of George Like a school-boy's who idles and plays with his 



t heme. 



Pox ?- 

Make our preachers war-chaplains ? — quote Scrip- 

t ure i o bake 
The hunted slave back, Eor Onesimus' sake? — 
(id to burning church candles, and chanting in 

choir, 
And on bhe old meeting house stick up a spire ? 

No ! the old paths we'll keep until better are 

shown, 

Credit good where we find it, abroad or our own ; At the feet of your Slocums, and Cartlands, and 
Andwhile"Lo here"and"Lo there " the mul- Earles, — 

t Ltude call, By courtesy only permitted to lay 

Be true to ourselves, and do justice to all. On your festival's altar my poor gift, to-day, — 

The good round about us we need not refuse, I would joy in your joy: let me have a friend's 

\n: ; ilk of our Zion as if we were .lews ; part 

But why shirk the badge which our fathers have In the warmth of your welcome of hand and of 



Forgive the light measure whose changes display 

The sunshine and rain of our brief April day. 

There are moments in life when the lip and the 

eye 
Ti \ the question of whether to smile or to cry; 
And scenes a in I reunions that prompt like our own 
The tender in feeling, the playful in tone. 

I, win i never sat down with the boys and the girls 



worn. 



heart, - 



Or beg the world's pardon for having been born ? On your play-ground of boyhood unbend the 

1 uow's care. 



We need not pray ovei'the Pharisee's prayer, 
Nor claim that our wisdom is Benjamin's share. 
Truth to us and to others is equal and one : 
Shall we bottle the free air, or hoard up the sun? 

Well know we our birthright may serve but to 
show 



And shift the old burdens our shoulders must In ar. 

Long live the good School! giving out year by 

year 
Recruits to true manhood and womanhood dear : 
Brave boys, modest maidens, in beauty sent forth, 
The living epistles and proof of its worth ! 



How the meanest of weeds in the richest soil In and out ,„ t the young life as steadily flc 



grow; 



As in broad Narragansett the tides come and go ; 



But mneed not disparage the good which we Aml its sons all(1 lts daughtcrs iu prairie ,, m( 
ThOUgh old? V6SSelS te eaith6n ' the treaSH1 ' e iS | Remember'its honor, and guard its renown. 



Enough and too much of the sect and the name. 



Not vainly the gift of its founder was made ; 

Not prayerless the stones of its corner were laid : 
Whal matters our label, so truth be our aim ? Th( . j, k ,- of Hilu whom in secret th Ut 

The creed may be wrong, but the life may be Has owned the good work which the fathers have 



true 

And hearts beat the same under drab coats or 
blue. 

So the man be a man, let him worship, at will, 
In Jerusalem's courts, or on Gerizim's hill. 
When she makes up her jewels, what cares yon 
good town 



wrought. 

To Him be the glory forever ! — Wc bear 

To the Lord of the Harvest our wheat with the 

tare. 
What we lack in our work may He find in our 

will, 



. -,, r ,, ^ , „ And winnow in mercy our good from the ill ! 

For the Baptist of WAYLAND, the Quaker of 

Brown ? 



And this green, favored island, so fresh and sea- 
Mown, 

When she counts up the worthies her annals have 
known. 

Never waits for the pitiful gangers of sect 

To measure her love, and mete out her respect. 

Three shades at this moment seem walking her 

strand, 
Each with head halo-crowned, and with palms in 

his hand, — 
Wise Berkeley, grave Hopkins, and, smiling 

serene 
On prelate and puritan, Channing is seen. 

One boh name bearing, no longer they need 
Credentials of party, and pass words of creed : 
The new song thej sing hath a threefold accord, 
And they own one baptism, one faith, and one 
Lord ! 

Bul thi ids run out : occasions like these 

■. i ft into slue low, like sails on the seas : 
While we sport with the mosses and pebbles 
ashore, 

sen and fade, and we see them 110 more. 



BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE. 

John Brown of Ossawatomie spake on his 

; day : 
"I will not have to shrive my soul a priest in 

Slavery's pay. 
But let some poor slave-mother whom I have 

striven to free, 
With her children, from the gallows-stair put up 

a prayer for me ! " 

John Brown of Ossawatomie, they led him out to 

ih"; 
And lo ! a poor slave -mother with her little child 
pressed nigh. 

Then the bold, blue eye grew tender, and the old 

harsh face grev\ mild, 
As he stooped between the jeering ranks and kissed 

the negro's child ! 

-lows of his stormy life that moment fell 
apart ; 
And the\ who blamed the bloody hand forgave 
bhe lo\ ing heart. 



FROM PERUGIA. 



189 



That kiss from all its guilty means redeemed the 

good intent. 
And round the grisly fighter's hair the martyr's 

aureole I iriit ! 

Perish with him the folly that seeks through evil 
g I ! 

Long live the generous purpose unstained with 
human blood ! 

Not the raid of midnight terror, but the thought 
which underlies ; 

Not the borderer's pride of daring, but the Chris- 
tian's sacrifice. 

Nevermore may yon Blue Ridges the Northern 
rifle hear, 

Nor see the light of blazing homes flash on the 
negro's spear. 

But let the free-winged angel Truth their guard- 
ed passe-, 

To teach that right is more than might, and jus- 
tice more than mail ! 

So vainly shall Virginia set her battle in array ; 
In vain her trampling squadrons knead the winter 

snow with clay. 
She may strike the pouncing eagle, but she dares 

not harm the dove ; 
And every gate she bars to Hate shall open wide 

to Love ! 



FROM PERUGIA. 

"The thing which has the most dissevered the people 
from the Pope. — the unforgivable thing, — the breaking 
point betwe ai him and them, — has be mi the encourage- 
ment and promotion he gave to the officer under whom 
were executed fine slaughters of Perugia. Thai made 
the breaking point in many honest hearts that had clung 
to him before." — Harriet Beecher iSlowe , s •• Letters from 
l/iil;/." 

The tall, sallow guardsmen their horse-tails have 

spread, 
Flaming out in their violet, yellow, and red ; 
And behind go the lackeys in crimson 'and buff, 
And the chamberlains gorgeous in velvet and ruff; 
Next, in red-legged pomp, come the cardinals 

forth, 
Each a lord of the church and a prince of the 

earth. 

What's this squeak of the fife, and this batter of 

drum ? 
Lo ! the Swiss of the Church from Perugia 

come, — 
The militant angels, whose sabres drive home 
To the hearts of the malcontents, cursed and 

abhorred. 
The good Father's missives, and " Thus saith the 

Lord ! " 
And lend to his logic the point of the sword ! 

O maids of Etruria, gazing forlorn 

O'er dark Thrasymenus, dishevelled and torn ! 

O fathers, who pluck at your gray beards for 

shame ! 
O mothers, struck dumb by a woe without name ! 
Well ye know how the Holy Church hireling 

behaves, 
And his tender compassion of prisons and graves ! 

There they stand, the hired stabbers, the blood- 
stains yet fresh, 

That splashed like red wine from the vintage of 
flesh,— 



Grim instruments, careless as pincers and rack 
How the joints tear apart, and the strained sinews 

crack ; 
But the hate that glares on them is sharp as bheir 

swords. 
And the sneer and the scowl print the air with 

fierce words ! 

Off with hats, down with knees, shout your vivas 

like mad ! 
Here 's the Pope in his holiday righteousness clad, 
From shorn crown to toe-nail, kiss-worn to the 

quick, 
( )f sainthood in purple the pattern and pick, 
Who the role of the priest and the soldier unites, 
And, praying like Aaron, like Joshua tights ! 

Is this Pio Nono the gracious, for whom 
We sang our hosannas and lighted all Rome ; 
With whose advent we dreamed the new era 

began 
When the priest should be human, the monk be 

a man . 
Ah, the wolf 's with the sheep, and the fox with 

the fowl, 
When freedom we trust to the crozier and cowl ! 

Stand aside, men of Rome ! Here 's a hangman- 
faced Swiss — 

(A blessing for him surely can't go amiss) — 

Would kneel down the sanctified slipper to kiss. 

Short shrift will suffice him, — he's blest beyond 
doubt ; 

But there 's blood on his hands which would 
scarcely wash out, 

Though Peter himself held the baptismal spout ! 

Make way for the next ! Here's another sweet 

son ! 
What 's this mastiff-jawed rascal in epaulets 

done ? 
He did, whispers rumor, (its truth God forbid!) 
At Perugia what Herod at Bethlehem did. 
And the mothers ? — Don't name them ! — these 

humors of war 
They who keep him in service must pardon him 

for. 

Hist ! here 's the arch-knave in a cardinal's hat, 
With the heart of a wolf, and the stealth of a cat 
(As if Judas and Herod together were rolled), • 
Who keeps, all as one, the Pope's conscience and 

gold, 
Mounts guard on the altar, and pilfers from 

thence, 
And flatters St. Peter while stealing his pence ! 

Who doubts Antonelli V Have miracles ceased 
When robbers say mass, and Barabbas is priest '? 
When the Church eats and drinks, at its mystical 

board, 
The true flesh and blood carved and shed by its 

sword, 
When its martyr, unsinged, claps the crown on 

his head, 
And roasts, as his proxy, his neighbor instead ! 

There ! the bells jow and jangle the same blessed 

way 
That they did when they rang for Bartholomew's 

day. 
Hark ! the tallow-faced monsters, nor women nor 

, boys, 
Vex the air with a shrill, sexless horror of noise. 
Te />< "in laudamus ! — All round without stint 
The incense-pot swings with a taint of blood in 't ! 

And now for the blessing ! Of little account, 
You know, is the old one they heard on the 
Mount. 



190 



FOR AN AUTUMN FESTIVAL.— THY WILL BE DONE. 



Its giver « ie landless, his raiment was poor, 
No jewelled tiara his fishermen wore ; 
No mcense, no lackeys, no riches, no home, 
No Swiss guards! We order things better at 
Rome. 

So bless us tin' strong hand, and curse us the 

weak ; 
Lei Austria's vulture have food I'm her beak; 
Let the wolf whelp of Naples plaj Bomba again. 
With his death cap of silence, and halter, and 

chain ; 
Put reason, and justice, and truth under ban; 
For the siu unforgiven is freedom for man ! 



FOR AN AUTUMN FESTIVAL. 

The Persian's flowery gifts, the shrine 

Ol' fruitful Ceres, charm no more; 
The woven wreaths of oak and pine 

Are dust along the Isthmian shore. 

But beauty hath its homage still, 
And nature holds us still in debt; 

And woman's grace and household skill, 
And manhood's toil, are honored yet. 

And we, to-day, amidst our flowers 
And fruits, have come to own again 

The blessings of the summer hours, 
The early and the latter rain ; 

To see our Father's hand once more 
Reverse for us the plenteous horn 

Of autumn, rilled and running o'er 
With fruit, flower, and golden corn ! 



Once more the liberal year laughs out 
( )'er richer stores than gems or gold ; 

Once more with harvest song and shout, 
Is Nature's bloodless triumph told. 

Our common mothei rests and sings, 
Like Ruth, among her garnered sheaves; 

Her lap is full ol goodly tilings. 

Her brow is bright with autumn leaves. 

O favors evi r\ j ear made new ! 

<) gifts with tain and sunshine sent ! 
The bountj overruns our due, 

The fulness shames our discontent. 

We shut our eyes, and flowers bloom on; 

We murmur, but the corn-ears fill ; 
A\ e choose the shadow, but the sun 

That casts it shines behind us still. 

< rod gives us with our rugged soil 
The power to make it Eden-fair, 

And richer fruits to crown our toil 
Than summer- wedded islands bear. 

Who murmurs at his lot to-day ? 

Who scorns his native fruit and bloom ? 
Or sighs for dainties Ear ;iway, 

Beside the bounteous board of home ? 

Thank Heaven, instead, that Freedom's arm 
Can change a rocky soil to gold, — 

That brave and generous lives can warm 
A clime with Northern ices cold. 

And let these altars, wreathed with flowers 
And piled with fruits, awake again 

Thanksgivings for the golden hours, 
The early and the latter rain ! 



IN" WAK TIME. 



TO SAMUEL E. SEWALL 

AND 

HARRIET W. SEWALL, 

OF MELROSE. 

OLOB ISCANUS queries: "Why should we 
Vex at the land's ridiculous miserie?" 
So on his l/sk banks, in the blood-red dawn 
Of England's civil strife, did careless Vaughan 
Bemock bis times, o friends of many years ! 
Though faith and trust are stronger than our 

fears. 
And the signs promise peace with liberty, 
Not thus we trifle with our country's tears 
And sweat of agony. The future's 
Is certain as (bid's truth ; but, meanwhile, pain 
Is bitter and tears are sail : our voi:es take 
A sober tone; our verj household songs 
Are heavy with a nation < ! wrongs; 

And innocent mirth is chastened for the sake 
Of the brave hearts that nevermore shall beat. 
The eves that smile no more, the unreturning 

feet ! 



THY WILL BE DONE. 

We see not, know not; all our way 
Is night, with Thee alone is day : 
From out the torrent's trouble drift, 
Above the storm our prayers we lift, 
Thy will be done ! 

The flesh may fail, the heart may faint, 
But who are we to make complaint, 
Or dare to plead, in times like these, 
The weakness of our love of ease ? 
Thy will be done ! 

We take with solemn thankfulness 
Our burden up, nor ask it less, 
And count, it, joy that even we 
May sutler, serve, or wait for Thee, 
Whose will be done! 

Though dim as yet in tint and line, 
We trace Thy picture's wise design, 
And thank Thee thai our age supplies 
Its dark relief of sacrifice. 
Thy will be done ! 



A WORD FOR THE HOUR.— TO JOHN C. FREMONT. 



191 



And if, in our unworth 
Thy sacrificial wine we > 
If from Thy ordeal's heated bars 
Our feet are seamed with crimson scars, 
Thy will be done ! 

If, for the age to come, this hour 
Of trial hath vicarious power, 
And, blest by The \ our present pain, 
Be Liberty's eternal gain, 
Thy will be done ! 

Strike, Thou the Master, we Thy keys, 
The anthem i inies ! 

The minor of Thy loftier's train 
Our hearts shall breathe the old refrain, 
Thy will b ■ done ! 



A WORD FOR THE HOUR. 

The firmament breaks up. In black eclipse 

Light after light goes out. One evil star, 

Luridly glaring through the smoke of war. 

As in the dream of the Apocalypse, 

Drags others down. Let us not weakly weep 

Nor rashly threaten. Give us grace to keep 

Our faith and patience ; wherefore should we 

leap 
On one hand into fratricidal fight, 
Or, on the other, yield eternal right, 
Frame lies of law, and good and ill confound ? 
What fear we ? Safe on freedom's vantage- 
ground 
Our feet are planted : let us there remain 
In unre vengeful calm, no means untried 
Which truth can sanction, no just claim denied, 
The sad spectators of a suicide ! 
They break the links of Union : shall we light 
The fires of hell to weld anew the chain 
On that red anvil where each blow is pain ? 
Draw we not even now a freer breath, 
As from our shoulders falls a load of death 
Loathsome as that the Tuscan's victim bore 
When keen with life to a dead horror bound ? 
Why take we up the accursed thing again ? 
Pity, forgive, but urge them back no more 
Who, drunk with passion, flaunt disunion's rag 
With its vile reptile-blazon. Let us press 
The golden cluster on our brave old flag 
Li closer union, and, if numbering less, 
Brighter shall shine the stars which still remain. 
16th 1st mo., 1861. 



EIX FESTE BURG 1ST UNSER GOTT. 

(LUTHER'S HYMN.) 

We wait beneath the furnace-blast 

The pangs of transformation ; 
Not painlessly doth God recast 
And mould anew the nation. 
Hot burns the fire 
Where wrongs expire ; 
Nor spares the hand 
That from the land 
Uproots the ancient evil. 

The hand-breadth cloud the sages feared 

Its bloody rain is dropping ; 
The poison plant the fathers spared 
All else is overtopping. 
East, West, South, North, 
It curses the earth ; 
All justice dies. 
And fraud and lies 
Live only in its shadow. 



What gives the wheat-field blades of steel ? 

What points the rebel cannon ? 
What sets the roaring rabble's heel 
On the old star-spangled pennon ? 
What breaks the oath 
Of the men o' the South ? 
What whets the knife 
For the Union's life V — 
Hark to the answer : Slavery ! 

Then waste no blows on lesser foes 

In strife unworthy freemen. 
God lifts to-day the veil, and shows 
The features of the demon ! 
O North and South, 
Its victims both, 
Can ye not cry, 
" Let slavery die ! " 
And union find in freedom ? 

What though the cast-out spirit tear 

The nation in his going ? 
We who have shared the guilt must share 
The pang of his o'erthrowing ! 
Whate'er the loss, 
Whate'er the cross, 
Shall they complain 
Of present pain 
Who trust in God's hereafter ? 

For who that leans on His right arm 

Was ever yet forsaken ? 
What righteous cause can suffer harm 
If He its part has taken ? 
Though wild and loud, 
And dark the cloud, 
Behind its folds 
His hand unholds 
The calm sky of to-morrow r ! 



Above the maddening cry for blood, 

Above the wild war-drumming, 
Let Freedom's voice be heard, with 
The evil overcoming. 
Give prayer and purse 
To stay the Curse 
Whose wrong we share, 
Whose shame we bear, 
Whose end shall gladden Heaven ! 

In vain the bells of war shall ring 

Of triumphs and revenges, 
While still is spared the evil thing 
That severs and estranges. 
But blest the ear 
That yet shall hear 
The jubilant bell 
That rings the knell 
Of Slavery forever ! 

Then let the selfish lip be dumb. 

And hushed the breath of sighing ; 
Before the joy of peace must come 
The pains of purifying. 
God give us grace 
Each in his place 
To bear his lot, 
And, murmuring not, 
Endure and wait and labor ! 



TO JOHN C. FREMONT. 

Thy error. Fremont, simply was to act 

A brave man's part, without the statesman's tact, 

And, taking counsel but of common sense, 

To strike at cause as well as consequence. 

O, never yet since Roland wound his horn 



192 



THE WATCHERS.— TO ENGLISH^ EN. 



At Etoncesvallea, has a blast been blown 

Par tieard, wide echoed, startling as thine own, 

Beard Erom the van of freedom's hope forlorn ! 

1 1 bad been safer, doubtless, Eor the time, 

To flatter treason, and avoid offence 

To bhal Dark Power whose underlying crime 

Eeaves upward Lts perpetual turbulenc i. 

Hut if thine be the fate of all who break 

The ground for truth's seed, or forerun their years 

Till lost in distance, or with stout hearts make 

A lane for freedom through the level spears, 

Still take thou courage ! God has spoken through 

thee, 
[rrevocable, the mighty words, 15c free! 
The land shakes with them; and the slave's dull 

car 
Turns from the rice swamp stealthily to hear. 
Who would recall them now must first arrest 
The winds that blow down from the free North- 
west, 
Ruffling the Gulf; or like a, scroll roll back 
The Mississippi to its upper springs. 
Such words fulfil their prophecy, and lack 
But the full time to harden into things. 



THE WATCHERS. 

Beside a stricken field 1 stood ; 

On the torn turf, on grass and wood, 

Hung heavily the dew of blood. 

Still in their fresh mounds lay the slain, 
But all the air was quick witii pain 
And gusty sighs and tearful rain. 

Two angels, each with drooping head 
And folded wings and noiseless tread, 
Watched by that valley of the dead. 

The one, with forehead saintly bland 
And lips of blessing, not command. 
Leaned, weeping, on her olive wand. 

The other's brows were scarred and knit, 
His restless eyes were watch-fires lit, 
His hands for battle-gauntlets lit. 

" How long ! " — I knew the voice of Peace, — 
"Is there no respite? — no release? — 
When shall the hopeless quarrel cease ? 

" O Lord, how long! — One human soul 
Is more than an\ parchment scroll, 
Or any flag thy winds unroll. 

" What price was Ellsworth's, young and brave '? 
flow weigh the gift that Lyon gave, 
Or count the cost of Winthrop's grave ? 

' ' O brother ! if thine eye can sec, 
Tell how and when the end shall be, 
What hope remains for thee and me." 

Then Freedom sternly said : "I shun 
No strife nor pang beneath the sun. 
When human rights are staked and won. 

"I knelt with Ziska's hunted Hock, 
I watched in Toussaint's cell of rock, 
1 walked with Sidney to the block. 

" The moor of Marston feft my tread. 
Through Jersey snows tin' march I led, 
My voice Magenta's charges sped. 

" But now, through weary day and night, 
1 watch a. vague and aimless Bgh1 
For leave to strike one blow aright. 



"On either side mj foe I hey own : 

( )ne guards through love his ghastly throne, 

And one through fear to reverence grown 

" Why wait w I Longer, mocked, betrayed, 

By open iocs, or those afraid 

To speed thy coming through my aid? 

" Why watch to see who win or fall? — 
I shake the dust against them all, 
1 leave them to their senseless brawl." 

" Nay,'' Peace implored : " yet longer wait ; 
The doom is near, the stake is great : 
God knoweth if it be too late. 

" Still wait and watch ; the way prepare 
Where 1 with folded wings of prayer 
May follow, weaponless and hare.'' 

"Too late ! " the stern, sad voice replied, 
"Too late ! " its mournful echo sighed, 
In low lament the answer died. 

A rustling as of wings in flight, 

An upward gleam of lessening white, 

So passed the vision, sound and sight. 

But round me, like a silver hell 
Rung down the listening sky to tell 
Of holy help, a sweet, voice fell. 

" Still hope and trust," it sang; " the l'od 
Must fall, the wine-press must be trod, 
But all is possible with God!" 



TO ENGLISHMEN. 

You flung your taunt across the wave ; 

We bore it as became us, 
Well knowing that the fettered slave 
Left friendly lips no option save 

To pity or to blame us. 

You scoffed our plea. " Mere lack of will, 

Not lack of power," you told us : 
We showed oar free-state records ; still 
You mocked, confounding good and ill, 
Slave-haters and slaveholders. 

We struck at Slavery ; to the verge 

Of power and means we checked it; 
Lo ! — presto, change! its claims you urge, 
Send greetings to it o'er the surge, 
And comfort and protect it. 

But yesterday you scarce could shake, 

In slave-abhorring rigor, 
Our Northern palms lor conscience' sake: 
To-day you clasp tin- hands that ache 

With "walloping the nigger! " :i 

O Englishmen ! — in hope and creed. 
In blood and tongue our brothers ! 

We too are heirs of Runnytneile ; 

And Shakespeare's fame and Cromwell's <\^<-d 
Are not alone our mother's. 

"Thicker than water," in one rill 

Through centuries of story 
Our Saxon blood has Unwed, and still 
We share with you its good and ill, 

The shadow and t he glory. 

Joint heirs and kinfolk, leagues of wave 

Nor length of years can partus: 
Your right is ours to shrine and grave, 



ASTR.EA AT THE CAPITOL.— THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862. 



193 



The common freehold of the brave, 
The gift of saints and martyrs. 

Our very sins and follies teach 

Our kindred frail ami human : 
We carp at faults with bitter speech, 
The while, for one unshared by each, 

We have a score in common. 

We bowed the heart., if not the knee, 
T<> England's Queen, God bloss her ! 

We praised you when your slaves went free ; 

We seek to unchain ours. Will ye 
Join hands with the oppressor V 

Ami is it Christian England cheers 

The bruiser, not the bruised? 
And must she run, despite the tears 
And prayers of eighteen hundred years, 

A m lick in Slavery's crusade V 

O black disgrace ! O shame and loss 
Too deep for tongue to phrase on ! 

Tear from your flag its holy cross, 

And in your van of battle toss 
The pirate's skull-bone blazon ! 



ASTR^EA AT THE CAPITOL. 

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF 
COLUMBIA, 1S02. 

When first I saw our banner wave 

Above the nation's council-hall, 

I heard beneath its marble wall 
The clanking fetters of the slave ! 

In the foul market-place I stood, 
And saw the Christian mother sold, 
And childhood with its locks of gold, 

Blue-eyed and fair with Saxon blood. 

I shut my eyes, I held my breath, 

And, smothering down the wrath and shame 
That set my Northern blood aflame, 

Stood silent, — where to speak was death. 

Beside me gloomed the prison -cell 
Where wasted one in slow decline 
For uttering simple words of mine, 

And loving freedom all too well. 

The flag that floated from the dome 
Flapped menace in the morning air ; 
I stood a perilled stranger where 

The human broker made his home. 

For crime was virtue : Gown and Sword 
And Law their threefold sanction gave, 
And to the quarry of the slave 

Went hawking with our symbol-bird. 

On the oppressor's side was power ; 

And yet I knew that every wrong, 

However old, however strong, 
But waited God's avenging hour. 

I knew that truth would crush the lie, — 
Somehow, some time, the end would be ; 
Yet scarcely dared I hope to see 

The triumph with my mortal eye 

But now I see it ! In the sun 

A free flag floats from yonder dome, 
And at the nation's hearth and home 

The justice long delayed is done. 

13 



Not. as we hoped, in calm of*prayer, 
The message of deliverance comes, 
But heralded by roll of drums 

On waves of battle-troubled air ! — 

Midst sounds that madden and appall, 
The song that Bethlehem's shepherds knew 
The harp of David melting through 

The demon-agonies of Saul ! 

Not as we hoped ; — but what are we ? 
Above our broken dreams and plans 
. God lays, with wiser hand than man's, 
The corner-stones of liberty. 

I cavil not with Him : the voice 
That freedom's blessed gospel tells 
Is sweet to me as silver bells, 

Rejoicing !— yea, I will rejoice ! 

Dear friends still toiling in the sun, — 
Ye dearer ones who, gone before, 
Are watching from the eternal shore 

The slow work by your hands begun, — 

Rejoice with me ! The chastening rod 
Blossoms with love ; the furnace heat 
Grows cool beneath His blessed feet 

Whose form is as the Son of God ! 

Rejoice ! Our Marah's bitter springs _ 
Are sweetened ; on our ground of grief 
Rise day by day in strong relief 

The prophecies of better things. 

Rejoice in hope ! The day and night 
Are one with God, and one with them 
Who see by faith the cloudy hem 

Of Judgment fringed with Mercy's light ! 



THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1S62. 

The flags of war like storm-birds fly, 

The charging trumpets blow ; 
Yet rolls no thunder in the sky, 

No earthquake strives below. 

And, calm and patient, Nature keeps 

Her ancient promise well, 
Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps 

The battle's breath of hell. 

And still she walks in golden hours 

Through harvest-happy farms, 
And still she wears her fruits and flowers 

Like jewels on her arms. 

What mean the gladness of the plain, 

This joy of eve and morn, 
The mirth that shakes the beard of grain 

And yellow locks of corn ? 

Ah ! eyes may well be full of tears, 

And hearts with hate are hot ; 
But even-paced come round th° ears, 

And Nature changes not. 

She meets with smiles our bitter grief, 
With songs our groans of pain ; 

She mocks with tint of flower and leaf 
The war-field's crimson stain. 

Still, in the cannon's pause, we hear 
Her sweet thanksgiving-psalm : 

Too near to God for doubt or fear, 
She shares the eternal calm. 



194 



MITHPJDATES AT CHIOS.— THE PROCLAMATION. 



She knows the seed lies Bafe below 
The fires that blast and burn ; 

For all the bears of blood we sow 
She waits the rich return. 

She sees with clearer eye than ours 
The good of suffering born, — 

The hearts thai blossom like her flowers, 
And ripen like her corn. 

( ). give to us, in times like these, 

The vision of her eyes; 
And make her fields and fruited trees 

Our "olden prophecies ! 

O, give to us her liner ear ! 

A bove this stormj din. 
We too would hear the hells of cheer 

lting peace and freedom in. 



MITHPJDATES AT CHIOS. 72 

Know'st thou, O slave-cursed land ! 
How, when the Chian 's cup of guilt 
Was full to overflow 7 , there came 
God's justice in the sword of flame 
That, red with slaughter to its hilt, 
Blazed in the Cappadocian victor's hand ? 

The heavens are still and far ; 

But, not unheard of awful Jove, 
The sighing of the island slave 
Was answered, when the JCgean wave 

The keels of Mithridates clove, • 
And the vines shrivelled in the breath of war. 

" Robbers of Chios ! hark," 
The victor cried, 1L to Heaven's decree ! 
Pluck your last cluster from the vine, 
Drain your last cup of Chian wine ; 
Slaves of your slaves, your doom shall be, 
Iri Colchian mines by Phasis rolling dark." 

Then rose the long lament 
From the hoar sea-god's dusky caves: 
The priestess rent her hair and cried, 
41 Woe ! woe ! The gods are sleepless-eyed ! " 
And, chained and scourged, the slaves of slaves, 
The lords of Chios into exile went. 

" The gods at last pay well," 

So Hellas sang her taunting song, 
"The fisher in his net is caught, 
The Chian hath his master bought ; " 

And isle from isle, with laughter long, 
Took up and sped the mocking parable. 

Once more the slow, dumb years 
Bring their avenging cycle round, 
And, more than Hellas taught- of old 
Our wiser lesson shall lie told. 
Of slaves uprising, freedom-crowned, 
To break, not wield, the scourge wet with their 
blood and tears. 



THE PROCLAMATION. 

Saint Patrick, slave to Milcho of the herds 

Of Ballymena, wakened with these words : 

" Arise, ami Bee 
Out from the land of bondage, and be free ! " 



Glad as a soul in pain, who hears from heaven 
The angels singing of his sins forgiven, 
And, wondering, sees 

His prison opening to their golden keys, 

He rose a man who laid him down a slave, 
Shook from his locks the ashes of the grave, 

And outward I n id 
Into the glorious liberty of God, 

lie east the symbols of his shame awaj ; 
And, passing where the sleeping Milcho lay, 

Tl gh back and limb 

Smarted with wrong, he prayed, "God pardos 

him ! " 

So went he forth ; but in (iod's time he came 
To light on Uilline's hills a holy flame ; 

And, dying, gave 
The land a saint that lost him as a slue. 

! O dark, sad millions, patiently and dumb 
Waiting for God, your hour, at last, has come, 

And freedom's song 
Breaks the long silence of your night of wrong. 

Arise and flee ! shake off the vile restraint 
Of ages ; but, like Ballymena' s saint, 

The oppressor spare, 
Heap only on his head the coals of prayer. 

Go forth, like him ! like him return again, 
To bless the land whereon in bitter pain 

Ye toiled at first, 
And heal with freedom what your slavery cursed. 



ANNIVERSARY POEM. 

[Road before the Alumni of the Friends' Yearly Meet 
in- School, at the Annual Meeting at Newport, R. 1., 
15th 6th mo., 1863.] 

Once more, dear friends, you meet beneath 

A clouded sky ; 
Not yet the sword has found its sheath, 
And on the sweet spring airs the breath 

Of war floats by. 

Yet trouble springs not from the ground, 

Nor pain from chance ; 
The Eternal order circles round, 
And wave and storm find mete and bound 

In Providence. 

Full long our feet the flowery ways 

Of peace have trod, 
Content with creed and garb and phrase : 
A harder path in earlier days 

Led up to < oid. 

Too cheaply truths, once purchased dear, 

Are made our own ; 
Too long the world has smiled to hear 
Our boast of full corn in the ear 

By others sown ; 

To see us stir the martyr fires 

Of long ago, 
And wrap our satisfied desires 
In the singed mantles that our sires 

Have dropped below. 

But now the cross our worthies bore 

On us is laid ; 
Profession's quiet sleep is o'er, 
And in the scale of truth once more 

Our faith is weighed. 



ANNIVERSARY POEM.— AT PORT ROYAL. 



195 



The cry of innocent blood at last 

Is calling down 
An answer in the whirlwind -blast, 
The thunder and the shadow cast 

From Heaven's dark frown. 

The land is red with judgments. Who 

Stands guiltless i 
Have we been faithful as we knew. 
To God ;m<l to our brother true, 

To Heaven and Earth? 

How faint, through din of merchandise 

And count of gain, 
Have seemed to us the captive's cries ! 
How far away the tears and sighs 

Of souls in pain '. 

This day the fearful reckoning comes 

To each and all ; 
We hear amidst our peaceful homes 
The summons of the conscript drums, 

The bugle's call. 

Our path is plain ; the war-net draws 

Round us in vain, ■ 
While, faithful to the Higher Cause, 
We keep our fealty to the laws 

Through patient pain. 

The levelled gun, the battle-brand, 

We may not take : 
But, calmly loyal, we can stand 
And suffer with our suffering land 

For conscience' sake. 

Why ask for ease where all is pain ? 

Shall we alone 
Be left to add our gain to gain, 
When over Armageddon's plain 

The trump is blown ? 

To suffer well is well to serve ; 

Safe in our Lord 
The rigid lines of law shall curve 
To spare us ; from our heads shall swerve 

Its smiting sword. 

And light is mingled with the gloom. 

And joy with grief ; 
Divinest compensations come, 
Through thorns of judgment mercies bloom 

In sweet relief. 

Thanks for our privilege to bless, 

By word and deed, 
The widow in her keen distress, 
The childless and the fatherless, 

The hearts that bleed ! 

For fields of duty, opening wide, 

Where all our powers 
Are tasked the eager steps to guide 
Of millions on a path untried : 

The slave is oiks ! 

Ours by traditions dear and old, 

Which make the race 
Our wards to cherish and uphold, 
And cast their freedom in the mould 

Of Christian grace. , 

And we may tread the sick-bed floors 

Where strong men pine, 
And, down the groaning corridors, 
Pour freely from our liberal stores 

The oil and wine. 



Who murmurs that in these dark days 

His lot it cast ? 
God's hand within the shadow lays 
The stones whereon His gates of praise 

Shall rise at last. 

Turn and o'erturn, O outstretched Hand ! 

Nor stint, nor stay ; 
The years have never dropped their sand 
On mortal issue vast and grand 

As ours to-day. 

Already, on the sable ground 

Of man's despair 
Is Freedom's glorious picture found, 
With all its dusky hands unbound 

Upraised in prayer. 

O, small shall seem all sacrifice 

And pain and loss, 
When God shall wipe the weeping eyes, 
For suffering give the victor's prize, 

The crown for cross ! 



AT PORT ROYAL. 

The tent-lights glimmer on the land, 

The ship-lights on the sea ; 
The night-wind smooths with drifting sand 

Our track on lone Tybee. 

At last our grating keels outslide, 
Our good boats forward swing ; 

And while we ride the land-locked tide, 
Our negroes row and sing. 

For dear the bondman holds his gifts 

Of music and of song : 
The gold that kindly Nature sifts 

Among his sands of wrong ; 

The power to make his toiling days 
And poor home-comforts please ; 

The quaint relief of mirth that plays 
With sorrow's minor keys. 

Another glow than sunset's fire 

Has filled the West with light, 
Where field and garner, barn and byre, 

Are blazing through the night. 

The land is wild with fear and hate, 

The rout runs mad and fast ; 
From hand to hand, from gate to gate 

The flaming brand is passed. 

The lurid glow falls strong across 

Dark faces broad with smiles : 
Not theirs the terror, hate, and loss 

That fire yon blazing piles. 

With oar-strokes timing to their song, 

They weave in simple lays 
The pathos of remembered wrong, 

The hope of better days, — 

The triumph-note that Miriam sung, 

The joy of uncaged birds : 
Softening with Afric's mellow tongue 

Their broken Saxon words. 



SONG OF THE NEGRO BOATMEN. 

O, praise an' tanks ! De Lord he come 
To set de people free ; 



106 



BARBARA PRIETCIIIE. 



An' massa tink it daj ob doom, 

An' we ob jubilee. 
I >. Lord dat heap de Red Sea waves 

He jus' as 'trong as den ; 
Hi' say ill' word : we las' night slaves ; 
To-day, de Lord's freemen. 

De yam will grow, do cotton blow, 

We '11 hab de rice an' corn ; 
nebber you fear, if aebber you hear 
Dc driver blow his horn ! 



Olc massa on he trabbels gone ; 

He leal' <le land behind : 
Dc Lord's breff blow him Euxder on, 

Like corn-shuck in de wind. 

We Own de hoc, we own de plough, 

We own de hands dat hold ; 
We sell de pig, We sill de cow, 
But nebber chile he sold. 

I »i yam will grow, de cotton blow, 

We '11 hah de rice an' corn ; 
O nebber you liar, if nebber you hear 
De driver blow his horn ! 

We pray de Lord : lie gib us signs 

Dat some day we he free ; 
De norf-wind till it to de pines, 

De wild-duck to dc sea ; 
We tink it when de church-bell ring, 

We dream it in de dream ; 
De rice-bird mean it when he sing, 
De eagle when he scream. 

De yam will grow, de cotton blow, 

We '11 hab de rice an' corn : 
O nebber you fear, if nebber you hear 
De driver blow his horn ! 

We know de promise nebber fail, 

An' nebber lie de word ; 
So like de 'postles in de jail, 

We waited for de Lord : 
An' now he open ebery door, 

An' trow away de key; 
He tink we lub him so before, 
We lub him better free. 
De yam will grow, de cotton blow, 

He '11 gib de rice an' corn ; 
O nebber you fear, if nebber you hear 
De driver blow his horn ! 



So sing our dusky gondoliers; 

And with a secret pain, 
And smiles that seem akin to tears, 

W T e hear the wild refrain. 



We dare not share the negro's trust, 

Nor yet his hope deny ; 
We only know that God is just, 

And every wrong shall die. 

Rude seems the song ; each swarthy face, 

Flame-lighted, ruder still : 
We start to think that hapless race 

Must shape our good or ill ; 

That laws of changeless justice bind 
Oppressor with oppress) d; . 

And, close as sin and suffering joined, 
We march to Fate abn 



Sing on, poor hearts ! your chant shall be 
Our sign of blight or bloom, — 

The Vala-song of Liberty, 
Or death-rune of our doom ! 



BARBARA FREETCHIE 

Up from the meadows rich with corn, 
( Hear in tin- cool September morn. 

The clustered Bpires of Frederick stand 
Green walled by the hills of Maryland. 

Round about them orchards sweep, 
Apple ami peach tree fruited deep, 

Fair as the garden of the Lord 

To the eyes of the famished rebel horde, 

On that pleasant morn of the early fall 
When Lee marched over I he mountain wall. 

Over the mountains winding down, 
Horse and foot, into Frederick town. 

Forty Hags with their silver stars, 
Forty Hags with their crimson bars, 

Flapped in the morning wind : the sun 
Of noon looked down, and saw not one. 

Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then, 
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten ; 

Bravest of all in Frederick town, 

She took up the flag the men hauled down ; 

In her attic window the staff she set, 
To show that one heart was loyal yet. 

Up the street came the rebel tread, 
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead. 

Under his slouched hat left and right 
He glanced : the old flag met his sight. 

" Halt! " — the dust-brown ranks stood fast. 
11 Fire ! " — out blazed the rifle-blast. 

It shivered the window, pane and sash ; 
It rent the banner with seam and gash. 

Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff 
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf. 

She leaned far out on the window-sill, 
And shook it forth with a royal will. 

" Shoot, if you must, this old gray head. 
But spare your country's flag," she said. 

A shade of sadness, a blush of shame, 
( her the face of the leader came ; 

The nobler nature within him stirred 

To hie at that woman's deed and word : 

" Who touches a hair of yon gray head 
Dies like a dog ! March on ! " he said. 

All day long through Frederick street 
Sounded the tread of marching feet: 

All day long that free flag tost 
( >vt r the heads of the rebel host. 

Ever its torn folds rose and fell 

On the loyal winds that loved it well ; 



COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION. 



197 



And through the hill-gaps sunset light 
Shone over it with a warm good-nignt. 

Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er, 

And the Rebel r-idea on his raids no more. 

Honor to her! and Let a tear 

Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall s b.er. 



Over Barbara Frietchie's grave, 
Flag of Freedom and Union, wave ! 

Peace and order and beauty draw 
Round thy symbol of light ami law ; 

\nd ever the stars above look down 
On thy stars below in Frederick town ! 




She leaned far out on the window-sill." 



BALLADS. 



COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION 

The beaver cut his timber 

With patient teeth that day, 
The minks were fish-wards, and the crows 

Surveyors of highway,— 

When Keezar sat on the hillside 

Upon his cobbler's form, 
With a pan of coals on either hand 
To keep his waxed-ends warm. 

And there, in fche -olden weather, 

lie stitched and hammered and sung; 

In the brook lie moistened his leather, 
In the pewter mug his tongue. 



Well knew the tough old Teuton 
Who brewed the stoutest ale, 

Ami he paid the goodwife's reckoning 
In the coin of song and tale. 

The songs they still arc singing 
Who dress the hills of vine, 

The tales that haunt the Bracken 
And whisper down the Rhine. 

W Isy and wild and lonesome, 

The swift stream wound away, 

Through birches and scarlet maples 
Flashing in foam and spray,— 

Down on the sharp-horned ledges 
Plunging in steep cascade, 

Tossing its white-maned waters 
Against the hemlock's shade. 



198 



COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION. 




*£& 



" Keezar sat on the hillside." 



Woodsy and wide and lonesome. 

East, and west and north and south ; 

Only the village of fishers 
Down at the river's mouth ; 

Only here and their a clearing, 

With its farm house rude and new, 

And tree-stumps, swart as Indians, 
Where the scanty harvest grew. 

No shout of home-bound reapers, 

No \ intage-song lie hoard, 
And on the green no dancing feet 

The merry violin stirred. 

" Why should folk he glum," said Keezar, 

"When Nature herself is glad, 
And the painted woods are laughing 

At the faces so sour and sad ?" 

Small heed had the careless cohMrr 
What sorrow of heart was theirs 

Who travailed in pain with the births of God, 
And planted a state with prayers, — 

Hunting of witches and warlocks, 

Smiting i he heal hen horde, — 
One hand on the mason's trowel. 

And one on thr soldier's sword ! 

But give him his ale and cider, 

< rive him his pipe and song, 

Lit1 le he cared tor < 'hurch or State, 

< >r the balance of right, and wrong. 

'"T is work, work, work," ho muttered, 
" And for rest a snuffle "I' psalms ! " 

Ho smote on his Leathern apron 
With his brown and waxen palms. 



" O for the purple harvests 
Of the days when I was young ! 

For the merry grape-stained maidens, 
And the pleasant songs they sung ! 

" O for the breath of vineyards, 
Of apples and nuts and wine ! 

For an oar to row and a breeze to blow 
Down the grand old river Rhine < " 

A tear in his blue eye glistened, 
And dropped on ids beard so gray. 

"Old, old am I," said Keezar, 
" And the Rhine flows far away ! " 

But a cunning man was the cobbler: 

He could call the birds from the trees, 
Charm the black snake out of the ledges, 
And bring back the swarming bees. 

All the virtues of herbs and metals, 
All the lore of the woods, he knew, 

And the arts of tin 1 Old World mingled 
With the marvels of the New. 

Well lie knew the tricks of magic, 
And the lapstone on his knee 

Had the gift of the Mormon's goggles 
Or the stone of Doctor Dee. 

For the mighty master Agrippa 

Wrought it with spell and rhyme 
From a fragment of mystic moonstone 

In the tOWer of Netteshrllo. 

To a lobbler Minnesinger 
The marvellous stone gave he, — 

And he gave it, in turn, to Keezar, 
Who brought it over the sea. 



AMY WEXTWORTH. 



199 



He held up that mystic lapstone, 

He held it up like a lens, 
Ami he counted the long years coming 

By twenties and by tens. 

"One hundred years," quoth Keezar, 

"Ami fifty have I told : 
Now open the new before me. 

And shut me out, the old '. " 

Like a cloud of mist, bhe blackness 

Rolled from the magic stone, 
Ami a marvellous picture mingled 

The unknown and the known. 

Still ran the stream to the river, 

And river and ocean joined ; 
And there were the bluffs and the blue sea-line, 

And cold north lulls behind. 

But the mighty forest was broken 

By many a steepled town, 
By many a white-walled farm-house, 

And many a garner brown. 

Turning a score of mill-wheels. 

The stream no more ran free ; 
White sails on the winding river, 

White sails on the far-ort' sea. 

Below in the noisy village 

The flags were floating gay, 
And shone on a thousand faces 

The light of a holiday. 

Swiftly the rival ploughmen 

Turned the brown earth from their shares; 
Here were the farmer's treasures, 

There were the craftsman's wares. 

Golden the goodwife's butter, 

Ruby her currant-wine ; 
Grand were the strutting turkeys, 

Pat were the beeves and swine. 

Yellow and red were the apples, 

And the ripe pears russet-brown, 
And the peaches had stolen blushes 

From the girls who shook them down. 

And with blooms of hill and wild- wood, 

That shame the toil of art, 
Mingled the gorgeous blossoms 

Ol the garden's tropic heart. 

" What is it I see ? " said Keezar : 

" Am I here, or am I there ? 
Is it a fete at Bingen ? 

Do I look on Frankfort fair V 

"But where are the clowns and puppets, 

A ud imps with horns and tail? 
And where are the Rhenish flagons ? 
And where is the foaming ale ? 

' Strange things, I know, will happen, — 

Strange things the Lord permits ; 
But that droughty folk should be jolly 
Puzzles my r poor old wits. 

" Here are smiling manly faces, 

And the maiden's step is gay ; 
Nor sad by thinking, nor mad by drinking, 

Nor mopes, nor fools, are they. 

" Here 's pleasure without regretting, 

And good without abuse, 
The holiday and the bridal 

Of beauty and of use. 



" Here 's a priest and there is a Quaker, — 

Do the cat and dog agree ? 
Have they burned the stocks for oven-wood? 

Have they cut down the gallows-tree 

" Would the old folk know their children V 
Would they own the graceless town, 

With never a ranter to worry 
And never a witch to drown ?" 

Loud laughed the cobbler Keezar, 
Laughed like a school-boy gay ; 

Tossing his arms above him, 
The lapstone rolled away. 

It rolled down the rugged hillside, 
It spun like a wheel bewitched, 

It plunged through the leaning willows, 
And into the river pitched. 

There, in the deep, dark water, 

The magic stone lies still, 
Under the leaning willows 

In the shadow of the bill. 

But oft the idle fisher 

Sits on the shadowy bank, 
And his dreams make marvellous pictures 

Where the wizard's lapstone sank. 

And still, in the summer twilights, 

When the river seems to run 
Out from the inner glory, 

Warm with the melted sun, 

The weary mill-girl lingers 

Beside the charmed stream, 
And the sky and the golden water 

Shape and color her dream. 

Fair wave the sunset gardens, 

The rosy signals fly ; 
Her homestead beckons from the cloud, 

And love goes sailing by ! 



AMY WENTWORTH. 



As they who watch by sick-beds find relief 
Unwittingly from the great stress of grief 
And anxious care in fantasies outwrought 
From the hearth's embers flickering low, or 

caught 
From whispering wind, or tread of passing feet, 
Or vagrant memory calling up some sweet 
Snatch of old song or romance, whence or why 
They scarcely know or ask, — so, thou and I, 
Nursed in the faith that Truth alone is strong 
In the endurance which outwearies Wrong, 
With meek persistence baffling brutal force, 
And trusting God against the universe,— 
We, doomed to watch a strife we may not share 
W T ith other weapons than the patriot's prayer, 
Yet owning, with full hearts and moistened eyes, 
The awful beauty of self-sacrifice, 
And wrung by keenest sympathy for all 
Who give their loved ones for the living wall 
' Twixt law and treason, — in this evil day 
May hax>ly find, through automatic play 
Of pen arid pencil, solace to our pain, 
And hearten others with the strength we gain. 
I know it has been said our times require 
No play of art, nor dalliance with the lyre, 
No weak essay with Fancy's chloroform 
To calm the hot, mad pulses of the storm, 



200 



AMY WENTWORTH. 




' She looks across the harbor bar. 



But the stern war-blast rather, such as sets 
The battle's teeth of serried bayonets, 
And pictures grim as Vernet's. Yet with these 
Some softer tints may blend, and milder keys 
Relieve the storm stunned ear. Let us keep 

sweet, 
If so we may, our hearts, even while we eat 
The bitter harvest of our own device 
And half a century's moral cowardice. 
As Nurnberg sang while Wittenberg defied, 
And Kranach painted by his Luther's side, 
And through the war-march of the Puritan 
The silver stream of Marvell's music ran, 
So let the household melodies be sung, 
The pleasant pictures on the wall be hung, — « 
So let us hold against the hosts of night 
And slavery all our vantage-ground of light. 
Let Treason boast its savagery, and shake 
Prom its flag-folds its symbol rattle-snake, 
Nurse its line arts, lav human skins in tan. 
And carve its pipe-bowls from the bones of man, 
And make the tale of Fijian banquets dull 
By drinking whiskey from a loyal skull. — 
Hut let us guard, till this sad war shall cense, 
(Cod grani it soon ! | the graceful arts of 
No toes are conquered who the victors teach 
Their vandal manners and barbaric speech. 

And while, with hearts of thankfulness, we bear 
Of Hie great common burden our lull share, 
l>> t none upbraid as thai the waves entice 
Thy sea-dipped pencil, or some quaint <le\ ice. 
Rhythmic and sweet, beguiles m\ pen away 
Prom the sharp strifes and sorrows of to day. 
Thus, while the east wind keen from Labrador 
Sings in the leafless elms, and from the sh< n 
< )l t he great sea comes the monotonous roar 



Of the long-breaking surf, and all the sky 

Is gray with cloud, home-bound and dull, I try 

To time a simple legend to the sounds 

Of winds in the woods, and waves on pebbled 

bounds, — 
A song for oars to chime with, such as might 
!!■ sung by tired sea-painters, who at night 
I look from their hemlock camps, by quiet cove 
Or beach, moon-lighted, on the waves they love. 
(So hast thou looked, when level sunset lay 
On the calm bosom of some Eastern bay, 
And all the spray-moist rocks and waves that 

rolled 
Up the white sand-slopes flashed with ruddy gold. ) 
Something it has — a flavor of the sea., 
And the sea's freedom — which reminds of the* 
Its faded picture, dimly smiling down 
From the blurred fresco of the ancient town, 
I have not touched with warmer tints in vain, 
If, in this dark, sad year, it steals one thought 

from pain. 



Hr.n fingers shame tne ivory keys 
They dance so light along ; 

The bloom upon her parted lips 
Is sweeter than the song. 

<> pet fumed suitor, spare thy smiles ! 

Her thoughts are not of thee ; 
She better loves the salted wind, 

'fhe voices of the sea. 

Her leart is like an outbound ship 
That at its anchor swings ; 

The murmur of the stranded shell 
Is in the song she sings. 



THE COUNTESS. 



201 



She sings, and, smiling, hears her praise, 

But dreams the while of one 
Who watches from his sea blown deck 

The icebergs iu the sun. 

She questions all bhe winds that blow, 

And every fog-wreath dim, 
And bids the sea birds Hying north 

Bear messages to him. 

She speeds them with the thanks of men 

He perilled life to save, 
And grateful prayers like holy oil 

To smooth for him the wave. 



Brown Viking of the fishing-smack ! 

Fair toast of all the town ! — 
The skipper's jerkin ill beseems 

The lady's silken gown ! 

But ne'er shall Amy Wentworth wear 
For him the blush of shame 

Who dares to set his manly gifts 
Against her ancient name. 

The stream is brightest at its spring, 
And blood is net like wine ; 

Nor honored less than he who heirs 
Is he who founds a line. 



Full lightly shall the prize be won, 
If love be Fortune's spur ; 

And never maiden stoops to him 
Who lifts himself to her. 



Her home is brave in Jaffrey Street, 
With stately stairways worn 

By feet of old Colonial knights 
And ladies gentle-born. 

Still green about its maple porch 

The English ivy twines, 
Trained back to show in English oak 

The herald's carven signs. 

And on her, from the wainscot old, 

Ancestral faces frown, — 
And this has worn the soldier's sword, 

And that the judge's gown. 

But, strong of will and proud as they, 

She walks the gallery floor- 
As if she trod her- sailor's deck 

By stormy Labrador ! 

The sweetbrier blooms on Kittery-side, 
And green are Elliot's bowers ; 

Her garden is the pebbled beach, 
The mosses are her flowers. 

She looks across the harbor-bar 

To see the white gulls fly ; 
His greeting from the Northern sea 
Is in their clanging cry. 

She hums a song, and dreams that he, 

As in its romance old, 
Shall homeward ride with silken sails 

And masts of beaten gold ! 

O, rank is good, and gold is fair, 

And high and low mate ill ; 
But love has never known a law 

Beyond its own sweet will ! 



THE COUNTESS. 



I know not, Time and Space so intervene, 
Whether, still waiting with a trust serene, 
Thou bearest up thy fourscore years and ten, 
Or, called at last, art now Heaven's citizen ; 
But, here or there, a pleasant thought of thee, 
Like an old friend, all day has been with me. 
The shy, still boy, for whom thy kindly hand 
Smoothed his hard pathway to the wonder-land 
Of thought and fancy, in gray manhood yet 
Keeps green the memory of his early debt. 
To-day, wdien truth and falsehood speak their 

words 
Through hot-lipped cannon and the teeth of 

swords, 
Listening with quickened heart and ear intent 
To each sharp clause of that stern argument, 
I still can hear at times a softer note 
Of the old pastoral music round me float, 
While through the hot gleam of our civil strife 
Looms the green mirage of a simpler life. 
As, at his alien post, the sentinel 
Drops the old bucket in the homestead well, 
And hears old voices in the winds that toss 
Above his head the live-oak's beard of moss, 
So, in our trial time, and under skies 
Shadowed by swords like Islam's paradise, 
I wait and watch, and let my fancy stray 
To milder scenes and youth's Arcadian day ; 
And howsoe'er the pencil dipped in dreams 
Shades the brown woods or tints the sunset 

streams, 
The country doctor in the foreground seems, 
Whose ancient sulky down the village lanes 
Dragged, like a war-car, captive ills and pains. 
I could not paint the scenery of my song, 
Mindless of one who looked thereon so long, 
Who, night and day, on duty's lonely round, 
Made friends o' the woods and rocks, and knew 

the sound 
Of each small brook, and what the hillside trees 
Said to the winds that touched their leafy keys ; 
Who saw so keenly and so well could paint 
The village-folk, with all their humors quaint, — 
The parson ambling on his wall-eyed roan, 
Grave and erect, with white hair backward blown; 
The tough old boatman, half amphibious grown; 
The muttering witch-wife of the gossip's tale, 
And the loud straggler levying his blackmail, — 
Old customs, habits, superstitions, fears, 
All that lies buried under fifty years. 
To thee, as is most tit, I bring my lay, 
And, grateful, owu the debt I cannot pay. 



Over the wooded northern ridge, 

Between its houses brown, 
To the dark tunnel of the bridge 

The street comes straggling down. 

You catch a glimpse, through birch and pine, 

Of gable, roof, and porch, 
The tavern with its swinging sign, 

The sharp horn of the church. 

The river's steel-blue crescent curves 

To meet, in ebb and How, 
The single broken wharf that serves 

For sloop and gundelow. 

With salt sea-scents along its shores 

The heavy hay-boats crawl. 
The long antennaj of their oars 

In lazy rise and fall. 



202 



THE COUNTESS. 



Along the gray abutment's wall 

The Ldle Bhad nel dries ; 
The toll-man, in his cobbler's stall 

Sits smoking w lth closed eyes. 

You hear the pier's low undertone 
( >f waves I hat chafe and gnaw : 

You start,— a skipper's horn is blown 
To raise the creaking draw. 

At times a blacksmith's anvil sounds 

With slow and sluggard beat, 
Or Btage -coach on itsdustj rounds 

Wakes up the staring street. 

A place Eor idle eyes and ears, 
A cobwebbed nook of dreams ; 

Left by the stream whose waves are years 
The stranded village seems. 

And there, like other moss and rust, 

The native dweller elings, 
And keeps, in uninquiring trust, 

The old, dull round of things. 

The fisher drops his patient lines, 

The farmer sows his grain, 
Content to hear the murmuring pines 

Instead of rail load-train. 

Go where, along the tangled steep 

That slopes against the west, 
The hamlet's buried idlers sleep 

In still profounder rest. 

Throw back the locust's flowery plume, 

The birch's pale green scarf, 
And break the web of brier and bloom 

From name and epitaph. 

A simple muster-roll of death, 

Of pomp and romance shorn, 
The dry, old names that common breath 

Has cheapened and outworn. 

Yet pause by one low mound, and part 

The wild vines o'er it, Laced, 
And read the words by rustic art 

Upon its headstone traced, 

Haply yon white-haired villager 

Of fourscore years can Say 
What means the noble name of her 

Who sleeps with common clay. 

An exile from the Gascon land 

Found refuge here and rest, 
And loved, of all tin- village band, 

Its fairest and its best. 

He knelt with her on Sabbath morns, 
He worshipped through her eyes, 

Ami on the pride that doubts and scorns 
Stole in her faith's surprise. 

Her simple daily life he saw 

By homeliest duties tried, 
In all things by an untaught law 

Of fitness justified. 



For her his rank aside he laid; 

I le took the hue and tone 
( >f lowly life and tojl, and made 

Her simple ways his own. 

Yet still, in gay and careless ease, 

To harvest Held or dance 
He in. ni-lit t he -ini le i- trsies, 

The nameless grace of France. 

And she who taught him love not less 

From him she loved in turn 
Caught in her sweet unconsciousness 

What love is quick to lea] a. 

Bach grew to each in pleased accord, 

Nor knew the gazing town 
If she looked upward to her lord 

Or he to her looked down. 

How sweet, when summer's day was o'er, 

His violin's mirth and wail, 
The walk on pleasant Newbury's shore, 

The river's moonlit sail ! 

Ah ! life is brief, though love be long ; 

The altar and t he bier, 
The burial hymn and bridal song, 

Were both in one short year ! 

Her rest is quiet on the hill, 

Beneath the locust's Moom : 
Far off her lover sleeps as still 

Within his scutcheoned tomb. 

The Gascon lord, the village maid, 
In death still clasp their hands; 

The love that levels rank and grade 
Unites their severed lands. 

What matter whose the hillside grave, 
Or whose the blazoned stone ? 

Fori \ er to her western wave 
Shall whisper blue Garonne ! 

O Love ! — so hallowing every soil 
That gives thy sweet flower room, 

Wherever, nursed by ease or toil, 
The human heart takes bloom ! — 

Plant of lost Eden, from the sod 

Of sinful earth unriven, 
White blossom of the trees of God 

Dropped down to us from heaven ! — 

This tangled waste of mound and stone 

Is holy for thy sake ; 
A sweetness which is all thy own 

Breathes out from fern and brake. 

And while ancestral pride shall twine 
The Gascon's tomb with floweis, 

Fall sweetly here, O song of mine. 
With summer's bloom and showers ! 

And let the lines that severed seem 

Unite again in thee, 
As western wave and Gallic stream 

Are mingled in one sea ! 



NAPLES. — THE SUMMONS.— THE WAITING. 



OCCASIONAL POEMS. 



201 



NAPLES. 
I860. 

INSCIUI'.El) To i:oi;i-:i:t <'. WATERSTON, OF 
BOSTON. 

I give thee joj ! — 1 know to thee 
The dearest spol on earth must be 
Where sleeps thy loved one by the summer sea; 

Where, near her sweetest poet's tomb, 
The land of Virgil gave thee room 
To lay thy flower with her perpetual bloom. 

I know that when the sky shut down 
Behind thee on the gleaming town, 
On Baiae's baths and Posilippo's crown ; 

And, through thy tears, the mocking day 
Burned [scnia's mountain lines away, 
And ( lapri melted in its sunny bay, — 

Through thy great farewell sorrow shot 
The sharp pang of a bitter thought 
That slaves must tread around that holy spot. 

Thou knewest not the land was blest 
In giving thy beloved rest, 
Holding the fond hope closer to her breast ; 

That every sweet and saintly grave 

Was freedom's prophecy, and gave 

The pledge of Heaven to sanctify and save. 

That pledge is answered. To thy ear 
The unchained city sends its cheer, 
And, tuned to joy, the muffled bells of fear 

Ring Victor in. The land sits free 
And happy by the summer sea, 
And Bourbon Naples now is Italy ! 

She smiles above her broken chain 
The languid smile that follows pain, 
Stretching her cramped limbs to the sun again. 

O, joy for all, who hear her call 
From gray Camaldoli's convent-wall 
And Elmo's towers to freedom's carnival ! 

A new life breathes among her vines 
And olives, like the breath of pines 
Blown downward from the breezy Apennines. 

Lean, O, my friend, to meet that breath, 
Rejoice as one who witnesseth 
Beauty from ashes rise, and life from death ! 

Thy sorrow shall no more be pain, 
Its tears shall fall in sunlit rain. 
Writing the grave with flowers : "Arisen again ! 



THE SUMMONS. 

My ear is full of summer sounds, 
Of summer sights my languid eye ; 

Beyond the dusty village bounds 

I loiter in my daily rounds, 

And in the noon-time shadows lie. 



I hear the wild bee wind his horn, 

The bird swings on the ripened wheat, 
The long green lances of the corn 
Are tilting in the winds of morn, 
The locust shrills his song of heat. 

Another sound my spirit hears, 

A deeper sound" that drowns them all, — 
A voice of pleading choked with tears, 
The call of human hopes and tears, 

The Macedonian cry to Paul. 

The storm-bell rings, the trumpet blows; 

I know the word and countersign; 
Wherever Freedom's vanguard goes, 
Where stand or fall her friends or foes, 

I know the place that should be mine. 

Shamed be the hands that idly fold, 

And lips that woo the reed's accord, 
When laggard Time the hour has tolled 
For true with false and new with old 
To light the battles of the Lord! 

brothers! blest by partial Fate 

With power to match the will and deed, 
To him your summons comes too late 
Who sinks beneath his armor's weight, 
And has no answer but God-speed ! 



THE WAITING. 

I wait and watch : before my eyes 
Methinks the night grows thin and gray ; 

I wait and watch the eastern skies 

To see the golden spears uprise 
Beneath the oriflamme of day ! 

Like one whose limbs are bound in trance 

I hear the day-sounds swell and grow, 
And. see across the twilight glance, 
Troop after troop, in swift advance, 
The shining ones with plumes of snow ! 

I know the errand of their feet, 

I know what mighty work is theirs ; 
I can but lift up hands unmeet, 
The threshing-floors of God to beat, 
And speed them with unworthy prayers. 

I will not dream in vain despair 

The steps of progress wait for me : 
The puny leverage of a hair 
The planet's impulse well may spare, 
A drop of dew the tided sea. 

The loss, if loss there be, is mine, 

And yet not mine if understood ; 
For one shall grasp and one resigu, 
One drink life's rue, and one its wine, 
And God shall make the balance good. 

O power to do ! O baffled will ! 

O prayer and action ! ye are one. 
Who may not strive, may yet fulfil 
The harder task of standing still, 

And good but wished with God is done ! 



204 



MOUNTAIN PICTURES.— OUR RIYER. 



MOUNTAIN PICTURES, 
i. 

FRANCONIA FROM THE PEMIGEWASSET. 

Once more, O Mountains of the North, unveil 
Your brows, and lay your cloud; mantles by ! 

And once more, ere the eyes that seek ye fail, 
(Jplifi against bhi blue walls of the sky 

Your mighty shapes, and Let the sunshine weave 
Its golden net-work in your belting woods, 
iSmile down in rainbows from your falling 
floods. 

And on your kingly brows at morn and eve 
Set crowns of tire ! So shall my sonl receive 

Haply the secret of your calm and strength, 
Your irnforgofcten beauty interfuse 
i\l\ common life, your glorious shapesand hues 
And sun-dropped Bplendors at my bidding 

come, 
Loom vast through dreams, and stretch in 
billowy length 

From the sea-level of my lowland home ! 

They rise before me ! Last night's thunder-gust 
Roared not in vain : for where its lightnings thrust 
Their tongues of lire, the great peaks seem so 

near, 
Burned clean of mist, so starkly hold and clear, 
I almost pause the wind in the pines to hear, 
The loose rock's fall, the steps til browsing deer. 
The clouds that shattered on yon slide-worn walls 

And splintered on the rocks their spears of 
rain 
Have set in play a thousand waterfalls, 
Making the dust and silence of the woods 
Clad with the laughter of the chasing floods, 
And luminous with blown spray and silver 

gleams, 
While, in the vales below, the dry-lipped streams 

Sing to the freshened meadow-lands again. 
So, let me hope, the battle-storm that beats 

The land with hail and fire may pass away 

With its spent thunders at the break of day, 
Like last night's clouds, and leave, as it retreats, 

A greener earth and fairer sky behind, 
Blown crystal-clear by Freedom's Northern wind ! 



MONADNOCK FROM WACTIUSET. 

I WOULD I were a painter, for the sake 
Of a sweet picture, and of her who led, 
A fitting guide, with reverential tread. 
Into that mountain mystery. First a lake 
Tinted with sunset ; next the wavy lines 
Of far receding hills ; and yet more far, 
Monadnock lifting from his night of pines 
His rosy forehead to the evening star. 
Beside us, purple-zoned, Wachuset laid 
His head against the West, whose warm light 
made 
His aureole ; and o'er him, sharp and clear, 
Like a shaft of lightning in mid-launching 
stayed, 
A single level cloud-line, shone upon 
By the fierce glances of the sunken sun, 
Menaced the darkness with its golden spear ! 

So twilight deepened round us. Still and black 
The great woods climbed the mountain at our 

back ; 
And on their skirts, where yet the lingering day 
On the shorn greenness of the clearing lay, 
The brown old farm-house like a bird's-nest 
hung. 



With home-life sounds the desert air was stirred : 
The bleat of sheep along the hill we heard, 
The bucket plashing in the cool, sweet well, 
The pasture-bars that clattered as they fell ; 
Dogs barked, fowls fluttered, cattle lowed; the 

gate 
Of the barn-yard creaked beneath the merry 
weight 
Of sun-brown children, listening, while they 
swung, 
The welcome sound of supper-call to hear ; 
And down the shadowy lane, in tinklings 
clear, 
The pastoral curfew of the cow-bell rung. 
Thus soothed and pleased, our backward path we 
took, 
Praising the farmer's home. He only spake, 
Looking into the sunset o'er the lake, 

Like one to whom the far-off is most near 
" Yes, most folks think it has a pleasant look ; 
I love it for my good old mother's sake, 

Who lived and* died here in the peace of 
God ! " 
The lesson of his words we pondered o'er, 
As silently we turned the eastern flank 
Of the mountain, where its shadow deepest sairk, 
Doubling the night along our rugged road : 
We felt that man was more than his abode, — 

The inward life than Nature's raiment more ; 
And the warm sky, the sundown-tinted hill, 
The forest and the lake, seemed dwarfed and 
dim 
Before the saintly soul, whose human will 
Meekly in the Eternal footsteps trod, 
Making her homely toil and household ways 
An earthly echo of the song of praise 
Swelling from angel lips and harps of seraphim. 



OUR RIVER. 

1 A SUMMER FESTIVAL AT "TOE LAURELS " 
ON THE MEHK1MACK. 

Once more on yonder laurelled height 

The summer flowers have budded : 
Once more with summer's golden light 

The vales of home are flooded ; 
And once more, by the grace of Him 

Of every good the Giver, 
We sing upon its wooded rim 

The praises of our river : 

Its pines above, its waves below, 

The west-wind down it blowing, 
As fair as when the young Brissot 

Beheld it seaward flowing, — 
Ami bore its memory o'er the de p, 

To soothe a, martyr's sadness, 
And fresco, in his troubled sleep, 

His prison-walls with gladness. 

We know the world is rich with streams 

Renowned in gong and story, 
Whuse music murmurs through our dreams 

Of human love and glory : 
We know that Arno's banks are fair, 

And Rhine has castled shadows, 
And, poet-tuned, the Doon and Ayr 

Go singing down the meadows. 

But while, unpictured and unsung 

By painter or by poet, 
Our river waits the tuneful tongue 

And cunning hand to show it, — 



ANDREW RYKMAN'S PRAYER. 



sor 



We only know the fond skies lean 


If they read this prayer of his 


Above it, warm with blessing, 


Which he left behind. 


Ami the sweet soul of our Undine 




Awakes to our caressing. 






Pardon, Lord, 'the lips that dare 


No fickle sun-god holds the flocks 


Shape in words a mortal's prayer ! 


That graze its shores in keeping ; 


Prayer, that, when my day is done, 


No icy kiss of Dian mocks 


And I see its setting sun, 


The youth beside it sleeping : 


Shorn and beamless, cold and dim, 


Our Christian river loveth most 


Sink beneath the horizon's rim, — • 


The beautiful and human ; 


When this ball of rock and clay 


The heathen streams of Naiads boast, 


Crumbles from my feet away, 


But ours of man and woman. 


And the solid shores of sense 




Melt into the vague immense, 


The miner in bis cabin hears 


Father ! I may come to Thee 


The ripple we are hearing ; 


Even with the beggar's plea, 


It whispers soft to homesick ears 


As the poorest of Thy poor, 


Around the settler's clearing : 


With my needs, and nothing more. 


In Sacramento's vales of corn, 




Or Santee's bloom of cotton, 


Not as one who seeks his home 


Our river by its valley-born 


With a step assured I come ; 


Was never yet forgotten. 


Still behind the tread I hear 




Of my life-companion, Fear ; 


The drum rolls loud, — the bugle fills 


Still a shadow deep and vast 


The summer air with clangor ; 


From my westering feet is cast, 


The war-storm shakes the solid hills 


Wavering, doubtful, undefined, 


Beneath its tread of anger ; 


Never shapen or outlined : 


Young eyes that last year smiled in ours 


From myself the fear has grown, 


Now point the rifle's barrel, 


And the shadow is my own. 


And hands then stained with fruits and flowers 


Yet, Lord, through all a sense 


Bear redder stains of quarrel. 


Of Thy tender providence 




Stays my failing heart on Thee, 


But blue skies smile, and flowers bloom on, 


And confirms the feeble knee ; 


And rivers still keep flowing, — ■ 


And, at times, my worn feet press 


The dear God still his rain and sun 


Spaces of cool quietness, 


On good and ill bestowing. 


Lilied whiteness shone upon 


His pine-trees whisper, " Trust and wait ! " 


Not by light of moon or sun. 


His flowers are prophesying 


Hours there be of inmost calm, 


That all we dread of change or fall 


Broken but by grateful psalm. 


His love is underlying. 


When I love Thee more than fear Thee, 




And Thy blessed Christ seems near me, 


And thou, Mountain-born ! — no more 


With forgiving look, as when 


We ask the wise Allotter 


He beheld the Magdalen. 


Than for the firmness of thy shore, 


Well I know that all things move 


The calmness of thy water, 


To the spheral rhythm of love, — 


The cheerful lights that overlay 


That to Thee, Lord of all ! 


Thy rugged slopes with beauty, 


Nothing can of chance befall : 


To match our spirits to our day 


Child and 'seraph, mote and star, 


And make a joy of duty. 


Well Tliou knowest what we are ; 




Through Thy vast creative plan 




Looking, from the worm to man, 




There ;.s pity in Thine eyes, 




But no hatred nor surprise. 






Not in blind caprice of will, 




Not in cunning sleight of skill, 




Not for show of power, was wrought 


ANDREW RYKMAN'S PRAYER. 


Nature's marvel in Thy thought. 




Never careless hand and vain 


A n i >he\v Rykman ',s dead and gone ; 


Smites these chords of joy and pain ; 


You can see his leaning slate 


No immortal selfishness 


In the graveyard, and thereon 


Plays the game of curse and bless : 


Read his name and date. 


Heaven and earth are witnesses 




That Thy glory goodness is. 


" Trust is 1 ria r limn our fears" 


Not for sport of mind and force 


Runs the legend through the moss, 


Hast Thou made Thy universe, 


" Gain is imt in added years, 


But as atmosphere and zone 


\~<>r in death is loss." 


Of Thy loving heart ah mo. 




Man, who walketh in a show, 


Still the feet that thither trod, 


Sees before him, to and fro, 


All the friendly eyes are dim ; 


Shadow and illusion go, ; 


Only Nature, now, and God 


All things flow and fluctuate, 


Have a care for him. 


Now contract and now dilate. 




In the welter of this sea, 


There the dews of quiet fall, 


Nothing stable is but Thee ; 


Singing birds and soft winds stray ; 


In this whirl of swooning trance, 


Shall the tender Heart of all 


Thou alone art permanence ; 


Be less kind than they ? 


All without Thee only seems, 




All beside is choice of dreams. 


What he was and what he is 


Never yet in darkest mood 


They who ask may haply find, 


Doubted I that Thou wast good, 



808 THE CRY OF A LOST SOUL. 


Nor mistook my will for fate, 


What thou wilt, Father, give ! 


Pain of Bin for heavenly hate, — 


All is gain that I receive. 


N',\, r dreamed the gates of pearl 


If my voice I may not raise 


Wise from out the burning marl, 


In the elders' song of praise, 


Or thai good ran only live 


If 1 may not, sin-defiled, 


Of the bad conser* a1 ivo. 


Claim my birthright as a child, 


And i trough counterpoise of hell 


Suffer it that I to Thee 


1 1 , , n. rii alone be possible. 


As an hired servant be ; 


For myself alone I doubt ; 


Let the lowliest task be mine. 


All is well, I know, without; 


Grateful, so the work be Thine; 


1 alone the beauty mar, 


Let me find the humblest place 


I alone f he music jar. 


In the shadow of Thy grace 


JTet, with hands by evil stained, 


Blest to me were any spot 


And an ear by discord pained, 


Where temptation whispers not. 


I am groping for the keys 


If then.' he some weaker one, 


Of the heavenly harmonies ; 


(live me strength to help him on ; 


Still within mj heart 1 bear 


H a blinder soul there he, 


Love for all things good and fair. 


Let me guide him nearer Thee. 


Hands of want or souls in pain 


Make my mortal dreams come true 


Have not sought my door in vain ; 


With the work I fain would do ; 


1 have kept ni\ fealty good 


Clothe with life the weak intent, 


To the human brotherhood; 


Let me be the thing 1 meant; 


Scarcely have I asked in prayer 


Let me find ia Thy employ 


That which others might not share. 


Peace that dearer is than joy 


I, who hear wit li secret shame 


Out of self to love lie led 


Praise thatpaineth more than blame, 


And to heaven acclimated, 


Rich alone in favors lent, 


Until all things sweet and good 


Virtuous by accident. 


Seem my natural habitude. 


Doubtful where I fain would rest, 




Frailest where I seem the best, 






Only strong for lack of test, — 




What am 1, that I should press 


So we read the prayer of him 


Special pleas of selfishness, 


Who, with John of Labadie, 


Coolly mounting into heaven 


Trod, of old, the oozy rim 


On my neighbor nnforgiven ? 


Of the Zuyder Zee. 


Ne'er to me, howe'er disguised, 




( tomes a saint unrecognized ; 


Thus did Andrew Rykman pray. 


Never fails my heart to greet 


Are we better, wiser grown, 


NobD deed with warmer beat ; 


That we may not, in our day, 


Halt and maimed, I own not less 


Make his prayer our own ? 


All the grace of holiness ; 




Nor, through shame or self-distrust, 




Less I love the pure and just. 




Lord, forgive these words of mine: 




What have I that is not Thine ? — 




Whatsoe'er 1 fain would boast 




• Needs Thy pitying pardon most. 


THE CRY OF A LOST SOUL. 74 


Thou, Elder Brother ! who 




In Thy flesh our trial knew, 


In that black forest, where, when day is done, 


Thou, who hast been touched by these 


With a snake's stillness glides the Amazon 


Our most sail infirmities, 


Darkly from sunset to the rising sun, 


Thou alone the gulf canst span 




In the dual heart of man, 


A cry, as of the pained heart of the wood, 


An 1 In tween the soul and sense 


The long, despairing moan of solitude 


Reconcile all difference, 


And darkness and the absence of all good, 


Change the dream of me and mine 




For the truth of Thee and Thine, 


Startles the traveller, with a sound so drear, 


And, through chaos, doubt, and strife, 


So full of hopeless agony and fear, 


Interfuse Thy calm of life. 


His heart stands still and listens like his ear. 


Haply, thus by Thee renewed, 




In Thy borrowed goodness good, 


The guide, as if he heard a dead-bell toll. 


Some sweet morning yet in God's 


Starts, drops his oar against the gunwale's thole, 


Dim, aeonian periods, 


Crosses himself, and whispers, "A lost soul ! 


Joyful I shall wake to see 




Those I love who rest in Thee, 


"No, Scnor, not a bird. 1 know it well, — 


And to them in Thee allied 


It is the pained soul of some infidel 


Shall my soul be satisfied. 


Or cursed heretic that cries from hell. 


Scarcely Hope hath shaped for me 


"Poor fool ! with hope still mocking his despair, 


What- the future life may be. 


He wanders, shrieking on the midnight air 


Other lips may well be bold; 


For human pity and for Christian prayer. 


Like th. publican of old, 




I can only urge the plea, 


"Saints strike him dumb! Our Holy Mother 


''Lord, be merciful to me ! " 


hath 


Nothing of desert I claim, 


No prayer for him who, sinning unto death, 


Unto me belongeth shame. 


Burns always in the furnace of God's wrath ! " 


Not I'm- me the crowns of gold, 




Palms, and barpings manifold ; 


Thus to the baptized pagan's cruel lie, 


Not for erring eye and feet 


Lending new horror to that mournful cry, 


Jasper wall and golden street. 


The voyager listens, making no reply. 



ITALY.— THE RIVER PATH.— A MEMORIAL. 



207 



Dim burns the boat-lamp : shadows deepen 

round, 
From giant trees with snake like creepers wound, 
And the black water glides without a sound. 

But in the traveller's heart a secret sense 

ue plastic to benign intents, 
And an eternal good in Providence, 

Lifts to the starry calm of heaven his eyes ; 
And In ! rebuking all earth's ominous cries, 
The Cross of pardon lights the tropic skies ! 

' ' Father of all ! " he urges his strong plea, 
"Thou Invest all: thy erring child may be 
Lost to himself, but never lost to Thee ! 

' ' All souls are Thine ; the wings of morning bear 
None from that Presence which is everywhere, 
Nor hell itself can hide, for Thou art there. 

"Through sins of sense, perversities of will, 
Through doubt and pain, through guilt and 

shame and ill. 
Thy pitying eye is on Thy creature still. 

" Wilt thou not make, Eternal Source and Goal ! 
In thy long years, life's broken circle whole, 
And change to praise the cry of a lost soul ? " 



ITALY. 

Across the sea I heard the groans 

Of nations in the intervals 
Of wind and wave. Their blood and bones 
( 'iied out in torture, crushed by thrones, 

And sucked by priestly cannibals. 

I dreamed of Freedom slowly gained 

By martyr meekness, patience, faith, 
And lo ! an athlete grimly stained, 
With corded muscles battle-strained, 
Shouting it from the fields of death ! 

I turn me, awe-struck, from the sight, 
Among the clamoring thousands mute, 

1 only know that God is right, 

And that the children of the light 
Shall tread the darkness under foot. 

I know the pent fire heaves its crust, 
That sultry skies the bolt will form 

To smite them clear ; that Nature must 

The balance of her powers adjust, 
.Though with the earthquake and the storm. 

God reigns, and let the earth rejoice ! 

I bow before His sterner plan. 
Dumb are the organs of my choice ; 
He -peaks in battle's stormy voice, 

Mis praise is in the wrath of man ! 

Yet, surely as He lives, the day 

Of peace He promised shall be ours, 

To fold the flags of war, and lay 

Its sword and spear to rust away, 

And sow its ghastly fields with flowers ! 



THE RIVER PATH. 

No bird-song floated down the hill, 
The tangled bank below was still ; 



No rustle from the birchen stem, 
No ripple from the water's hem. 

The dusk of twilight round us grew, 
We felt the falling of the dew ; 

For, from us, ere the day was done, 
The wooded hills shut out the sun. 

But on the river's farther side 
We saw the hill-tops glorified, — 

A tender glow, exceeding fair, 
A dream of day without its glare. 

With us the damp, the chill, the gloom : 
With them the sunset's rosy bloom ; 

While dark, through willowy vistas seen, 
The river rolled in shade between. 

From out the darkness where we trod, 
We gazed upon those hills of God, 

Whose light seemed not of moon or sun. 
We spake not, but our thought was one. 

We paused, as if from that bright shore 
Beckoned our dear ones gone before ; 

And stilled our beating hearts to hear 
The voices lost to mortal ear ! 

Sudden our pathway turned from night ; 
The hills swung open to the light ; 

Through their green gates the sunshine showed, 
A long, slant splendor downward flowed. 

Down glade and glen and bank it rolled ; 
It bridged the shaded stream with gold ; 

And, borne on piers of mist, allied 
The shadowy with the sunlit side ! 

" So," prayed we, " when our feet draw near 
The river dark, with mortal fear, 

" And the night cometh chill with dew, 
O Father ! let thy light break through ! 

" So let the hills of doubt divide, 
So bridge with faith the sunless tide ! 

"So let the eyes that fail on earth 
On thy eternal hills look forth ; 

" And in thy beckoning angels know 
The clear ones whom we loved below ! " 



A MEMORIAL. 



O, thicker, deeper, darker growing, 

The solemn vista to. the tomb 
Must know henceforth another shadow, 

And give another cypress room. 

In love surpassing that of brothers. 

We walked, O friend, from childhood's day; 

And, looking back o'er fifty summers, 
Our footprints track a common way. 

One in our faith, and one our longing 
To make the world within our reach 



208 A HYMN. 


Somewhat the better for our living, 


Still let them greet thy life companions 


And gladder for our human speech. 


Who thither turn their pilgrim feet, 




. In every mossy line recalling 


Thou heard'et with me bhe Ear off voices, 


A tender memory sadly sweet. 


The old beguiling song of fame, 




Hut life tn thee was warm and present, 


friend ! if thought and sense avail not 


And love was better than a name. 


To know thee henceforth as thou art, 




That all is will with thee Eorever 


To homely joys and Loves and friendships 


I trust the instincts of my heart. 


Thy genial uature Eondbj clung; 




And so the shadow on the dial 


Thine be the quiet habitations, 


Ran back and left thee always young. 


Thine the green pastures, blossom-sown, 




And smiles of saintly recognition, 


And who could blame the generous weakness 


As sweet and tender as thy own. 


Which, only to thyself unjust, 




So ov< rprized t he worth of others, 


Thou com'st not from the hush ami shadow 


And dwarfed thy own with self-distrust? 


To meet us, bnt to thee we come ; 




With thee we never can be strangers, 


All hearts grew warmer in the presence 


And where thou art must still be home. 


Of one who, seeking not his own, 




Gave freely for the love of giving, 




Nor reaped for self the harvest sown. 




Thy greeting smile was pledge and prelude 


HYMN, 


Of generous deeds and kindly words; 




In thy large heart were fair guest-chambers, 


SUNG AT CHBISTMAS BI THE SCHOLARS OF ST 


Open to sunrise a. id the birds ! 


HELENA'S ISLAND, S. C. 


The task was thine to medd and fashion 


O none in all the world before 


Life's plastic newness int grace: 


Were ever glad as we ! 


To make the boyish heart heroic, 


We 're free on Carolina's shore, 


And light with thought the maiden's face. 


We 're all at home and free. 


O'er all the land, in town and prairie, 


Thou Friend and Helper of the poor, 


With bended beads of mourning, stand 


Who suffered tor our sake, 


The living forms that owe their beauty 


To open every prison door, 


And fitness to thy shaping hand. 


And every yoke to break ! 


Thy call has come in ripened manhood, 


Bend low Thy pitying face and mild, 


The noonday calm of heart and mind, 


And help us sing and pray ; 


While I, who dreamed of thy remaining 


The hand that blessed the little child, 


To mourn me, linger still behind : 


Upon our foreheads lay. 


Live on, to own, with self-upbraiding, 


We hear no more the driver's horn, 


A debt of love still due from me, — 


No more the whip we fear, 


The vain remembrance of occasions, 


This holy day that saw Thee born 


Forever lost, of serving thee. 


Was never halt so dear. 


It was not mine among thy kindred 


The very oaks are greener clad, 


To join the silent funeral prayers, 


The waters brighter smile ; 


But all that long sad day of summer 


O never shone a, day so glad 


My tears of mourning dropped with theirs. 


On sweet St. Helen's Isle. 


All day the sea-waves sobbed with sorrow, 


We praise Thee in our songs to-day, 


The birds forgot their merry trills: 


To thee in prayer we call, 


All day I heard the pines lamenting 


Make swift the feet and straight the way 


With thine upon thy homestead hills. 


Of freedom unto all. 


Green be those hillside pines Eorever, 


Come once again, blessed Lord ! 


And green the meadowy lowlands be, 


Come walking on the sea ! 


And green the old memorial beeches, 


And let the mainlands hear the word 


Name-carven in the woods of Lee ! 


That sets the islands free ! 



SNOW BOUND. 



209 





A WINTER IDYL. 

1865. 



TO THE MEMOBI 



THE HOUSEHOLD IT DESCRIBES, 

THIS TOEM IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. 



"As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, 
so Good Spirits which be Angels of Light .'ire aug- 
mented not only by the Divine light of the Sun. but also 
by our common Wood Fire: and as the (VleMial Fire 
drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood 
doth the same."— Cor. Agrippa, Occult Philosophy, 
Book 1. eh. v. 

'•Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, 
Arrives the snow : and. driving o'er the fields, 
Seems nowhere to alight ; the whited air 
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven 
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. 
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet 
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates 
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed 
In a tumultuous privacy of storm." 

Emerson. 

The sun that brief December day 

Rose cheerless over hills of gray, 

And, darkly circled, gave at noon 

A sadder light than waning moon. 

Slow tracing down the thickening sky 

Its mute and ominous prophecy, 

A portent seeming less than threat, 

It sank from sight before it set. 

A chill no coat, however stout, 

Of homespun staff could quite shut out, 

A hard, dull bitterness of cold, 

That cheeked, mid-vein, the circling race 
Of life-blood in the sharpened face, 

The coming of the snow-storm told. 

The wind blew east , we heard the roar 

Of Ocean on his wintry shore, 

14 



And felt the strong pulse throbbing there 
Beat with low rhythm our inland air. 

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, — 

Brought in the wood from out of doors, 

Littered the stalls, and from the mows 

Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows ; 

Heard the horse whinnying for his corn ; 

And, sharply clashing horn on horn, 

Impatient down the stanchion rows 

The cattle shake their walnut bows , 

While, peering from his early perch 

Upon the scaffold's pole of birch, 

The cock his crested helmet bent 

And down his querulous challenge sent. 

Unwarmed by any sunset light 

The gray day darkened into night, 

A night made hoary with the swarm, 

And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, 

As zigzag wavering to and fro 

Crossed and n ■crossed the winged snow : 

And ere the early bedtime came 

The white drift piled the window-frame, 

And through the glass the clothes-line posts 

Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts. 

So all night long the storm roared on : 
The morning broke without a sun ; 
In tin\ spherule traced with lines 
Of Nature's geometric signs, 
In starry flake, and pellicle, 
All day the hoary meteor fell ; 



210 



SNOW BOUND. 



Ami, when the second morning shone, 

We looked upon a world unknown, 

( >n nothing we could call our own. 

Around I lie glisj ening wonder bent 

The blue walls of the firmament, 

No cloud above, no earth below, — 

A universe of skj and snow! 

The old familiar sights of ours 

Took marvellous shapes ; strange domes and 

t owers 
Hose up where sty or corn crib stood, 
Or garden-wall, or belt of wood; 
A smooth white mound the brush-pile 

showed, 
A fenceless drift what once was road ; 

'Che bridle post an old man sal. 

With loose Hung coat and high cocked hat; 

The well-CUrb had a Chinese roof; 

Ami even tin- long sweep, high aloof, 
In Its slant splendor, seemed to tell 
Of Pisa's leaning miracle. 

A prompt, decisive man, no breath 
Our lather wasted : " Hoys, a, path ! " 
Well pleased, (for when did lainier boy 

Count such a summons less thanjoj ?) 

Our buskins on our feet- we drew; 

With mittened hands, and caps drawn low, 
To guard our necks and ears from .snow, 
We cut- the solid whiteness through. 
And, where the drift, was deepest, made 
A tunnel walled and overlaid 
With dazzling crystal : we had read 
Of 'are Aladdin's wondrous cave, 
And to our own his name we gave, 
With many a wish the luck were ours 
To test his lamp's supernal powers. 
We reached the barn with merry din. 
And roused the prisoned brutes within. 
The old horse thrust his long head out, 
And grave with wonder gazed about ; 
The cock his lusty erecting said, 
And forth his speckled harem led ; 
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked, 
And mild reproach of hunger looked ; 
The homed patriarch of the sheep, 
Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep, 
Shook his sage head with gesture mute, 
And emphasized with stamp of foot. 

All day the gusty north- wind bore 
Tin- loosening drift its breath before; 
Low circling round its southern zone, 
The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone. 
No church-bell lent its Christian tone 
To the savage air, no social smoke 
( Juried o\ er womb of snow hung oak. 
A solitude made more ini ense 
By dreary voiced elements, 
The shrieking of the mindless wind, 
The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind, 
And on the ^lass the unmeaning beat 

bly finger-tips of sleet. 
1 teyond t he circle of our hearth 
No welcome sound of toil or mirth 
I nbound the spell, and testified 
Of human life ami thought outside. 
We minded that the sharpest eai 
The buried brooklet could not. hear, 
The music of whose liquid lip 
Had been to us companionship, 
And. in our lonely life, had thrown 
To have an almost, human tone. 

As nighl drew on, and, from the crest 
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west, 
The sun. a snow Mown traveller, sank 
Prom sight beneath the smothering bank, 
We piled, with care, our nightly stack 
Of wood against the chimney -back, — 



The oaken log, green, huge, and thick, 
And on its top the stout back-stick ; 
The knotty forestick laid apart, 
And filled between with curious art 
The ragged brush; then, hovering mar, 
We watched the first red blaze appear, 
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam 
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, 
Until the old, rude-furnished room 
Hurst, flower-like, into rosy bloom 
While radiant with a mimic flame 
Outside the sparkling drift became, 
And through the bare boughed lilac-tree 
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free 
The crane and pendent trammels show, ,|, 
The Turks' heads on the andirons glowed ; 
While childish fancy, prompt to tell 
The meaning of the miracle, 
Whispered the old rhyme: Under the tree, 
When fire outdoors burns merrily, 
Then ihc witchesare making tea." 

The moon above the eastern wood 
Shone at its full ; the hill range stood 
Transfigured in the silver Hood, 
its blown snows flashing cold ami keen, 
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine 
Took shadow, or the sombre green 
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black 
Against the whiteness at their back. 
For such a. world and such a night 
Most fitting that unwarming light, 
\\ Inch only seemed where'er it tell 
To make tiie coldness visible. 

Shut in from till the world without, 
W" sat the clean-winged hearth about, 
Content to let the north-wind roar 
In baffled rage at pane and door. 
While the red logs before us beat 
The frost-line back with tropic heat ; 
And ever, when a louder blast 
Shook beam and rafter as it passed, 
The merrier up its roaring draught 
The great throat of the chimney laughed, 
The house-dog on his paws outspread 
Laid to the fire his drowsy head, 
The cat's dark silhouette on the wall 
A couchant tiger's seemed to fall ; 
And, for the winter fireside meet, 
Between the andirons' straddling feet, 
The mug of cider simmered slow, 
The apples sputtered in a row, 
And, close at hand, the basket stood 
With nuts from brown October's wood. 

What matter how the night behaved ? 

What matter how the north-wind raved ? 

Blow high, blow low, not all its snow 

Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow. 

O Time and Change ! — with hair as gray 

As was my sire's that winter day. 

How strange it seems, with so much gone 

Of life and love, to still live on ! 

Ah, brother ! only I and thou 

Are left of all that, circle now, — 

The dear home faces whereupon 

That fitful firelight paled and shone. 

Henceforward, listen as we will, 

The voices of that hearth are still ; 

Look where we may, the wide earth o'er. 

Those lighted faces smile no more. 

W'e tread the paths their feet have worn, 

We sit, beneath their orchard trees, 

We hear, like them, the hum of bees 
And rustle of the bladed corn ; 
We tutu the pages that they read, 

Their written words we Linger o'er, 
Hut in the sun they cast no shade, 
No voice is heard, no sign is made, 

No step is on the conscious floor ! 



SNOW BOUND. 



211 



Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust, 
(Since He who knows our need is just,) 
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. 
Alas tor him who never sees 
The stars shine through his cypress-trees ! 
Who, hopeless, lays Ins dead away, 
Nor looks to see the breaking day 
Across the mournful marbles play ! 
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith, 

The truth to flesh and sense unknown, 
That Lite is ever lord of Death, 

And Love can never lose its own ! 

We spoil I he 1 ime with stories old, 

Wrought puzzh s out, and riddles told, 

Or stammered froi r school-book lore 

"The Chief of Gambia's golden shore." 

How often since, when all the land 
Was cl,-i\ iii Slavery's shaping hand, 
As if a trumpet called, 1 've heard 
Dame Mercy Warren's rousing word : 
" Does not thi void of reason cry, 

Claim the first right which Nature gave, 
From tht red scourge of bondage fly, 

Nor deign to livt a burdened slave / " 
Our father rode again his ride 
On Memphremagog's wooded side ; 
Sat down again to moose and samp 
In trapper's hut and Indian camp; 
Lived o'er the old idyllic ease 
Beneath St. Francois' hemlock-trees ; 
Again for him the moonlight shone 
(>n Xorman cap and bodiced zone; 
Again he heard the violin play 
Which led the village dance away, 
And mingled in its merry whirl 
The grandam and the laughing girl. 
Or, nearer home, our steps he led 
Where Salisbury's level marshes spread 

Mile-wide as flies the laden lice ; 
Where merry mowers, hale and strong, 
Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along 

The low green prairies of the sea. 
We shared the fishing off Boar's Head, 

And around the rocky Isles of Shoals 

The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals ; 
The chowder on the sand-beach made, 
Dipped by r the hungry, steaming hot, 
Wit ii spoons of clam-shell from the pot. 
We heard the tales of witchcraft old. 
And dream and sign and marvel told 
To sleepy listeners as they lay 
Stretched idly on the salted hay, 

Adrift along the winding shores, 
When favoring breezes deigned to blow 
The square sail of the gundelow 

And idle lay the useless oars. 

Our mother, while she turned her wheel 
Or run the new-knit stocking-heel, 
Told how the Indian hordes came down 
At midnight on Cochecho town, 
And how her own great-uncle bore 
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore. 
Recalling, in her fitting phrase. 
So rich, and pictures! pie and free, 
(The common unrhymed poetry 
I M simple life and country ways.) 

iry of her early days, — 
She mole us welcome to her home; 
Old hearths grew wide to give us room ; 
We stole with her a frightened look 
At the gray wizard's conjuring-book, 
The tame whereof went far and wide 
Through all the simple country side ; 
We heard the hawks at twilight play, 
The boat-horn on Piscataqua, 
The loon's weird laughter far away ; 
We fished her little trout-brook, knew 
What flowers in wood and meadow grew, 



What sunny hillsides autumn-brown 
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down, 
Saw where in sheltered cove and bay 
The ducks' black squadron anchored lay, 
And heard the wild-geese calling loud 
Beneath the gray November cloud. 

Then, haply, with a look more grave, 

And soberer tone, some tale she gave 

From painful Sewell's ancient tome, 

Beloved in every Quaker home, 

Of faith tire-winged by martyrdom, 

Or Chalkley's Journal, old and quaint, — 

Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint ! — 

Who, when the dreary calms prevailed, 

And water-butt and bread-cask failed, 

And cruel, hungry eyes pursued 

His portly presence mad for food, 

With dark hints muttered under breath 

Of casting lots for life or death, 

Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies, 

To be himself the sacrifice. 

Then, suddenly, as if to save 

The good man from his living grave, 

A ripple on the water grew, 

A school of porpoise flashed in view. 

" Take, eat," he 1 said, " and be content ; 

These fishes in my stead are sent 

By Him who gave the tangled ram 

To spare the child of Abraham." 

Our uncle, innocent of books, 

Was rich in lore of fields and brooks, 

The ancient teachers never dumb 

Of Nature's unhoused lyceum. 

In moons and tides and weather wise, 

He read the clouds as prophecies, 

And foul or fair could well divine, 

By many an occult hint and sign, 

Holding the cunning-warded keys 

To all the woodcraft mysteries ; 

Himself to Nature's heart so near 

That all her voices in his ear 

Of beast or bird had meanings clear, 

Like Apollonius of old, 

Who knew the tales the sparrows told, 

Or Hermes who interpreted 

What the sage cranes of Nilus said ; 

A simple, guileless, childlike man, 

Content to live where life began ; 

Strong only on his native grounds, 

The little world of sights and sounds 

Whose girdle was the parish bounds, 

Whereof his loudly partial pride 

The common features magnified, 

As Surrey hdls to mountains grew 

In W T hite of Selborne's loving view, — 

He told how teal and loon he shot, 

And how the eagle's eggs he got, 

The feats on pond and river done, 

The prodigies of rod and gun ; 

Till, warming with the tales he told, 

Forgotten was the outside cold, 

The bitter wind unheeded blew, 

From ripening corn the pigeons flew, 

The partridge drummed i' the wood, the mink 

Went fishing down the river-brink. 

In fields with bean or clover gay, 

The woodchuck, like a hermit gray, 

Peered from the doorway of his cell ; 
The muskrat plied the mason's trade, 
And tier by tier his mud-walls laid ; 
And from the shagbark overhead 

The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell. 

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer 
And voice in dreams I see and hear, 
The sweetest woman ever Fate 
Perverse denied a household mate, 



212 



SNOW BOUND. 



Who, lonely, homeless, not the less 
Found peace in love's unselfishness, 
And welcome wheresoe'er she went, 
A calm and gracious element, 
Whose presence seemed the sweet income 
And womanly atmosphere of home, — 
Called up her girlhood memories, 
The hustings and the apple bees, 
The Bleigh-rides and the summer sails, 
Weaving through all the poor details 
And homespun warp <>f circumstance 
A golden woof thread of romance. 
For well she kepi her genial mood 
Ami simple faith id' maidenhood ; 
Before her still a cloud-land lay, 
The mirage loomed across her way; 
The morning dew, that dries mi soon 
With others, glistened at her in <>n ; 
Through years <d' toil and soil and care, 
From glossy tress to thin gray hair, 
All unprofaned she held aparl 
The virgin fancies id' the heart. 
Be shame to him id' woman born 
Who hath for such hut thought of scorn. 

There, too, our elder sister plied 
Eer evening task the stand beside ; 
A full, rich nature, free to t mst,, 
Truthful and almost stei uly just. 
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act, 
And make her generous thought a fact, 
Keeping with many a, light disguise 

The secret of se] f-sacrillce. 

heart sore tried ! thou hast, the lust 
That Heaven itself could give thee, — rest, 
I! est from all bitter thoughts and things ! 

J low maii\ a | r one's blessing went 

With (lice beneath the low green tent 
Whoso curtain never outward swings ! 

As one who held herself a. part 
Of all she saw, and let her heart 

Against- the household bosom lean, 
I T pi mi the mot le\ braided mat 
Our youngest and our dearest sat, 
Lifting Inr large, sweet, asking eyes, 

Nnw bathed wit Inn the fadeless green 
And hol\ peace of Paradise. 
(), looking from some heavenly hill, 

Or from the shade of saintly palms, 

Or silver reach of i 'i\ er calms, 
Do those large eyes behold me still ? 
With me one lit tie year ago : — 
The chill weight of the winter snow 

For months upon her grave has lain ; 
And now, when summer south winds blow 

And brier and harebell bloom again, 

1 tread the pleasant paths we trod, 
I ee the i iolel sprinkled sod 

Where, in sl.e leaned, too frail and weak 

The hillside flowers she loved to seek 
Yet following nit 1 where'er T went 
With dark e\ es full oi' love's content. 

The birds are glad ; the brier rose mis 

The air with sweetness ; all the hills 

Stretch green to June's unclouded sky ; 

Hut still I wait with ear and eye 

For something gone u Inch should he nigh, 

A loss in all familiar things, 

In flower that blooms, and bird thai sings. 

And yet, dear heart ! remembering bh e, 

Am I not richer I han of old ? 
Safe in thy immoi tality, 

What, chang i can reach the wealth I bold ? 

What, chance can mar the pearl and gold 
Thy love hath hit iu trust with me? 
And u hile in life's late afternoon, 

W h< re COOl and long the shadows grow, 
I walk t set i he aighl i hat soon 

(Shall shape and shadow overflow, 



I cannot feel that thou art far, 

Sue e mar at need the angels are : 
Ami when tin: sunset, gates unhar, 

Shall I not, see thee waiting stand, 
And, white against, the evening star, 

The welcome of thy beckoning hand V 

Brisk wielder of the birch ami rule, 
The master of t he dist net, school 

I [eld ai, t he lire his favored place, 
Its warm glow lit, a laughing face 

Fresh trued ami fair, where scarce appeared 
The uncertain prophecj of beard, 
lie teased (lie mitten-blinded cat, 
Played cross pins on my uncle's hat, 
Sang songs, and told us what befalls 
In classic Dartmouth's college halls. 
Born tie wild Northern hills anion:;, 
From whence his yeoman father wri ng 
By patient toil subsistence scant, 

Not competence and yet, not want, 
He earl) gaim d t lie power to pay 

I I is cheerful, sel I' reliant, way ; 
Could doff at ease his scholar's gown 
To peddle wan s from town to town ; 
( >r through the long vacation's reach 
In lonely lowland districts teach, 
Where all the droll experience found 
At, stranger hearths in boan ing round, 
The moonlit skater's keen deli, lit, 

The sleigh drive through the frosty n ; ; hi, 
The rustic party, with its rough 
Accompaniment of blind-man's-buff, 
And whirling plate, and forfeits paid. 
His winter task a. pastime made. 
Happy the snow locked homes wherein 
He tuned his merry violin, 
Or played the athlete in the barn, 
Or held the good dame's winding-yarn, 
Or mirth-provoking versions told 
Of classic legends rare and old, 
Wherein the scenes of < • recce and Home 
Had all the commonplace of home, 
And little seemed at best the odds 
'Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods ; 
Where Hindus horn Araxestook 
Tin- guise of any grist-mill brook, 
And dread Olympus at his will 
Became a huckleberry hill. 

A careless hoy that night he seemed ; 

But at his desk he had the look 
Ami air of one who wisely schemed. 
And hostage from the future took 
In trained thought and lore oi' hook. 
Large brained, char eyed,— of such as he 
Shall Freedom's young apostles he. 
Who, following in War's bloody trail, 
Shall ever] lingering wrong assail ; 
All chains from limb and spirit, strike, 
Uplift the black and white alike ; 

Scatter before their swift, advance 
The darkness and the ignorance, 
The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth, 
Which nurtured Treason's monstrous growl h 
Blade murder pastime, and the hell 
( If prison fort me possible ; 

The cruel lie of caste i efiite. 

Old forms remould, and substitute 
for Slavery's lash the freeman's will, 
Foi blind routine, and wise-handed skill ; 
A school house plant on every hill, 
Stretching in radiate nerve lines thence 
The quick wires of intelligi ace ; 

Till Ninth and South together brought 
Shall own t he same elect lie thought, 

III peace a common flag salute, 
Ami, side by side in labor's l ree 
And uureseiit lul rivalry, 

Harvest the fields wherein they fought. 



SNOW BOUND. 



213 




We saw the half-buried oxen. 1 ' 



Another guest that winter night 

Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light- 

Unmarked by time, and yet not young, 

The honeyed music of her tongue 

And words of meekness scarcely told 

A nature passionate and bold, 

Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide, 

Its milder features dwarfed beside 

Her unbent will's majestic pride. 

She sat among us, at the best, 

A not unfeared, half-welcome guest, 

Rebuking with her cultured phrase 

Our homeliness of words and ways. 

A certain pard-like, treacherous grace 
Swayed the lithe limbs aud dropped the lash, 
Lent the white teeth their dazzling Hash ; 
And under low brows, black with night, 
Raved out at times a dangerous light ; 

The sharp heat-lightnings of her face 

Presaging ill to him whom Fate 

< iondemned to share her love or hate, 

A woman tropical, intense 

In thought and act, in soul and sense, 

She blended in a like degree 

The vixen and the devotee, 

Revealing with each freak or feint 
The temper of Petruchio's Kate, 

The raptures of Siena's saint. 

Her tapering hand and rounded wrist 

Had facile power to form a fist ; 

The warm, dark languish of her eyes 

Was never safe from wrath's surprise. 

Brows saintly calm and lips devout 

Km w every change of scowl aud pout ; 

And the sweet voice had notes more high 

And shrill for social battle-cry. 

Since then what old cathedral town 

Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown, 

What convent-gate has held its lock 

Against the challenge of her knock ! 

Through Smyrna's plague-hushed thorough- 
fares, 

Up sea-set Malta's rocky stairs, 

Gray olive slopes of hills that hem 

Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem, 

Or startling on her desert throne 

The crazy Queen of Lebanon 

With claims fantastic as her own, 



Her tireless feet have held their way; 

And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray, 

She watches under Eastern skies, 

With hope each day renewed and fresh, 
The Lord's quick coming in the flesh, 

Whereof she dreams aud prophesies ! 

Where'er her troubled path may be, 

The Lord's sweet pity with her go ! 
The nut ward wayward life we see, 

The hidden springs we may not know. 
Nor is it given us to discern 

What threads the fatal sisters spun, 

Through what ancestral years had run 
The sorrow with the woman born, 
What forged her cruel chain of moods, 
What set her feet in solitudes, 

And held the love within her mute, 
What mingled madness in the blood, 

A life-long discord and annoy, 

Water of tears with oil of joy, 
And hid within the folded bud 

Perversities of flower and fruit. 
It is not ours to separate 
The tangled skein of will and fate, 
To show what metes and bounds should stand 
Upon the soul's debatable land, 
And between choice and Providence 
Divide the circle of events ; 

But He who knows our frame is just, 
Merciful and compassionate, 
And full of sweet assurances 
And hope for all the language is, 

That He remembereth we are dust ! 
At last the great logs, crumbling low, 
Sent out a dull and duller glow, 
The bull's-eye watch that hung in view, 
Ticking its weary circuit through, 
Pointed with mutely warning sign 
Its black hand to the hour of nine. 
That sign the pleasant circle broke : 
My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke, 
Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray, 
And laid it tenderh away, 
Then roused himself to safely cover 
The dull red brands with ashes over. 
And while, with care, our mother laid 
The work aside, her steps she stayed 



214 



SNOW BOUND. 



One moment, seeking to express 
Her grateful sense of happiness 
J-'< >r food and shelter, warmth and health, 
And love's contentment more bhan wealth, 
With simple wishes (nol the weak, 
A'ain prayers which no fulfilment seek, 
But such as warm the generous heart, 
O'er prompt bo do with Heaven its part) 

That n ■ might lark, that bitter night. 

For bread and clothing, warmth and light 

Within OUT beds awhile we heard 

The wind that round the gables roared, 

With now and then a ruder shock, 
Which made our very bedsteads rock. 
We beard the loosened clapboards tost, 
The hoard nails snapping in the frost; 
And on us, through the unplastered wall, 
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall. 
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do 
When hearts are light and life is new ; 
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew ; 
Till in the summer-land of dreams 
The) softened to 1 be sound of streams, 
Low stir of leaves, ami dip of oars, 
And lapsing waves on quiet shores. 

Next morn we wakened with the shout 
Of merry voices high and (dear ; 
And saw the teamsters drawing near 
To break the drifted highways out. 
Down the long hillside treading slow 
We saw the half-buried oxen go, 
Shaking the snow from heads uptost, 
Their straining nostrils white with frost. 
Before our door the straggling train 
Drew up, an added team to gain. 
The elders threshed their hands a-cold. 
Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes 
From lip to lip ; the younger folks 
Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled, 
Thei toiled again the cavalcade 

O'er windy hill, through clogged ravine, 
And woodland paths that wound between 
Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed, 
Prom every barn a, team afoot, 
At every house a. new recruit, 
Where, drawn by Nature's subtlest law 
Haply the watchful young men saw 
Sweet doorway pictures of the curls 
And curious eyes of merry girls, 
Lifting their hands in mock defence 
Against the snow-ball's compliments, 
And reading in each missive tost 
The charm with Eden never lost. 

We heard once more the sleigh-bells' sound ; 

And, following where the teamsters led, 
The wise old Doctor went his round, 

Just pausing at our door to say, 
In the brief autocratic way 
Of one who, prompt at Duty's call, 
Was free to urge her claim on all, 

That some poor neighbor sick abed 
At night our mother's aid would need, 
for. one in generous thought- and deed, 

What mattered in the sufferer's sight 

The Quaker matron's inward light, 
The Doctor's mail of Calvin's creed ? 
All hearts confess the saints elect 

Who, twain in faith, in lov< 
And licit not in an acid sect 

The Christian pearl of charity ! 

So .lays went on : ;i week had passed 
Since the great world was heard from last. 

The Almanac we st udied o'er, 

Read and reread our little store, 

Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score ; 

One harmless novel, mostly hid 

From ' -. a hook Forbid, 

And poetry, (or good or bad, 



A single book was all we had,) 

Where Ellwood's meek, drab skirted Muse, 
A stranger to the heathen Nine, 
Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine, 

The wars of I >avid and the Jews. 

At last the floundering carrier bore 

The village paper to our door. 

Lo ! broadening outward as we read, 
To warmer zones the horizon spread ; 
In panoramic length unrolled 
We saw the marvels that it told. 
Before us passed the painted * Ireeks 

And daft .Met rregor on his raids 

In Costa Rica's everglades. 
And up Taygetos winding slow 
Rode Vpsilant i's Mainote ( Greeks, 

A Turk's head at each saddle how ' 
Welcome to us its week old news, 
Its corner for the rustic Muse, 

Its monthly gauge of snow and rain, 
Its record, mingling in a breath 
The wedding knell and dirge of death; 
Jest, anecdote, and love lorn tale, 
The latest culprit sent to jail ; 
Its hue and cry of stolen ami lost, 
Its vendue sales and goods at cost, 

And traffic calling loud for gain. 
We felt the stir of hall and street, 
The pulse of life that round us heat ; 
The chill embargo of the snow- 
Was melted in the genial glow ; 
Wide swung again our ice-locked door, 
And all the world was ours once more ! 

Clasp, Angel of the backward look 

And folded wings of ashen gray 

And voice of echoes far away. 
The brazen covers of thy hook; 
The weird palimpsest old and vast, 
Wherein thou hid'st the spectral past; 
Where, closely mingling, pale and glow 
The characters of joy and woe; 
The monographs of outlived years, 
( )r smile illnnn d or dim with tears, 

Green hills of life that slope to death, 
And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees 
Shade off to mournful cypresses 

With the white amaranths underneath. 
Even while I look, I can but heed 

The restless sands' incessant fall. 
Importunate hours that hours succi ed, 
Each clamorous with its own sharp need, 

Ar*d duty keeping pace with all. 
Shut down and clasp the heavy lids ; 
I hear again the voice that bids 
The dreamer leave his dream midway 
For larger hopes and graver Tears : 
Life greatens in these later years, 
The century's aloe flowers to-day ! 

Yet, haply, in some lull id' life, 

Some Truce of (hid which breaks its strife, 

The worldling's eyes shall gather dew, 

Dreaming in throngful city ways 
Of winter joys his boyhood knew ; 
And dear and early friends —the lew 
Who yet remain- shall pause to view 

These Flemish pictures of old days; 
Sit with me by the homestead hearth. 
And stretch bne hands of memory forth 

To warm them at the wood-tire's blaze ! 
And thanks nntraced to lips unknown 
Shall greet me like the odors blown 
from unseen meadows newly mown, 
Or lilies floating in some pond, 
Wood fringed, the wayside gaze beyond ; 
The traveller owns bhe grateful sense 
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence, 
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare 
The benediction of the air. 



THE TENT ON THE BEACH. 



215 



THE TEKT OlST THE BEACH, 

AND OTHER POEMS. 



1867 



I would not sin, in this half-playful strain, — 

Tool ight perhaps Eor serious years, though born 
Of the enforced leisure of slow pain, — 

Against the purr ideal which has drawn 
My feet to follow its Ear-shining gleam. 
A simple plot is mine : legends and runes 
< )1' credulous days, old fancies that have lain 
Silent from boyhood taking voice again, 
Warmed into life once more, even as the tunes 
That, frozen in the fabled hunting-horn, 
Thawed into sound : — a winter fireside dream 
Of dawns and sunsets by the summer sea, 
Whose sands are traversed by a silent throng 
Of voyagers from that vaster mystery 
Of which it is an emblem ; — and the dear 
Memory of one who might hive tuned my song 
To sweeter music by her delicate ear. 

1st mo., 1867. 



THE TENT ON THE BEACH. 

When heats as of a tropic clime 

Burned all our inland valleys through, 
Three friends, the guests of summer time, 
Pitched their white tent where sea-winds 
blew. 
Behind them, marshes, seamed and crossed 
With narrow creeks, and flower- embossed, 
Stretched to the dark oak wood, whose leafy arms 
Screened from the stormy East the pleasant in- 
land farms. 

At full of tide their bolder shore 

Of sun-bleached sand the waters beat ; 
At ebb, a smooth and glistening floor 

They touched with light, receding feet. 
Northward a green bluff broke the chain 
Of sand-hills; southward stretched a plain 
Of salt grass, with a river winding down, 
Sail whitened, and beyond the steeples of the 
town, 

Whence sometimes, when the wind was light 

And dull the thunder of the beach, 
Thej' heard the bells of morn and night 
Swing, miles away, their silver speech. 
Above low scarp an 1 turf-grown wall 
They saw the fort-flag rise and fall ; 
And, the first star to signal twilight 's hour, 
The lamp-fire glimmer down from the tall light- 
house tower. 

They rested there, escaped awhile 

Prom cares that wear the life away. 
To eat the lotus of the Nile 

And drink the poppies of Cathay, — 
To fling their loads of custom down. 
Like drift- weed, on the sand-slopes brown, 
And in the sea waves drown the restless pack 
Of duties, claims, and needs that barked upon 
their track. 

One, with his beard scarce silvered, bore 

A ready credence in his looks, 
A lettered magnate, lording o'er 

An ever-widening realm of books'. 



In him brain-currents, near and far, 

Converged as in a Leyden jar ; 
The old, dead authors thronged him round about, 
And Elzevir's gray ghosts from leathern graves 
looked out. 

He knew each living pundit well, 

Could weigh the gifts of him or her, 
And well the market, value tell 

Of poet and philosopher. 
But if he lost, the scenes behind, 
Somewhat of reverence vague and blind, 
Finding the actors human at the best, 
No readier lips than his the good he saw con- 
fessed. 

His boyhood fancies not outgrown, 

He loved himself the singer's art ; 
Tenderly, gently, by his own 

He knew and judged an author's heart. 
No Rhadamanthine brow of doom 
Bowed the dazed pedant from his room ; 
And bards, whose name is legion, if denied, 
Bore off alike intact their verses and their pride. 

Pleasant it was to roam about 

The lettered world as he had done, 
And see the lords of song without 

Their singing robes and garlands on. 
With Wordsworth paddle Rydai mere, 
Taste rugged Elliott's home-brewed beer, 
And with the ears of Rogers, at four-score, 
Hear Garrick's buskined tread and Walpole's wit 
once more. 

And one there was, a dreamer born, 

Who, with a mission to fulfil, 
Had left the Muses' haunts to turn 

The crank of an opinion-mill, 
Making his rustic reed of song 
A weapon in the war with wrong, 
Yoking his fancy to the breaking-plough 
That beam-deep turned the soil for truth to 
spring and grow. 

Too quiet seemed the man to ride 
The winged Hippogriff Reform ; 
Was his a voice from side to side 

To pierce the tumult of the storm '? 
A silent, shy, peace-loving man, 
He seemed no fiery partisan 
To hold his way against the public frown, 
The ban of Church and State, the fierce mob's 
hounding down. 

For while he wrought with strenuous will 

The work his hands had found to do, 
He heard the fitful music still 

Of winds that out of dream-land blew. 
The din about him could not drown 
What the strange voices whispered down ; 
Along his task-field weird processions swept, 
The visionary pomp of stately phantoms stepped. 

The common air was thick with dreams, — 
He told them to the toiling crowd ; 

Such music as the woods and streams 
Sang in his ear he sang aloud ; 



21G 



THE WRECK OF RT VERMOUTH. 



In still, shut bays, on windy capes, 

He beard the call of beck tg shapes, 

And, as I he graj old shadows prompted him, 
To homrU moulds of rhyme he shaped their 
Legends grim. 

He rested now his weary hands, 

And lightly moralized and Laughed, 
As, tracing on the shifting sands 
A burlesque of bis paper craft, 
lie saw the careless waves o'errun 
His words, as time before had done, 
Bach day's tide-water washing clean away, 
Like Letters from the sand, the work of yesterday. 

And one, whose Arab face was tanned 

By tropic sun and boreal frost, 
So travelled there was scarce a land 

Or people Left him to exhaust, 
In idling mood had from hire hurled 
The poor squeezed orange of the world, 
And in the tent-shade, as beneath a palm, 
Smoked, cross-legged like a Turk, in Oriental 
calm. 

The very waves that washed the sand 

Below him, he had seen before 
Whitening tin- Scandinavian strand 

And sultry Mauritania n shore. 
From ice-rimmed isles, from summer seas 
Palm-fringed, they bore him messages ; 
He heard the plaintive Nubian songs again, 
And mule-bells tinkling down the mountain- 
paths of Spain. 

His memory round the ransacked earth 

On Ariel's girdle slid at ease ; 
And, instant, to the valley's girth 

Of mountains, spice isles of the seas, 
Faith flowered in minster stones, Art's guess 
At truth and beauty, found access ; 
Yet loved the while, that free cosmopolite, 
Old friends, old ways, and kept his boyhood's 
dreams in sight. 

Untouched as yet by wealth and pride, 

That virgin innocence of beach : 
No shingly monster, hundred eyed, 

Stared its gray sand-birds out of reach ; 
Unhoused, save where, at intervals, 
The white tents showed their canvas walls, 
Where brief sojourners, in the cool, soft air, 
Forgot their inland heats, hard toil, and year- 
long care. 

Sometimes along the wheel-damp sand 

A one-horse wagon slowly crawled, 
Deep laden with a youthful band, 

Whose look some homestead old recalled ; 
Brother perchance, and sisters twain, 
And one whose blue eyes told, more plain 
Than the free language of her rosy lip, 
Of the still dearer claim of love's relationship. 

With cheeks of russet-orchard tint, 

The light laugh of their native rills, 
The perfume of their garden's mint, 

The breezy freedom of the hills. 
They bore, in unrestrained delight, 
The motto of the < Larter's knight, 
Careless as if from every gazing thing 
Hid by their innocence, as Gyges by iiis ring. 

The clanging sea fowl came and went, 
'['he hunter's gun in the marshes rang; 

At nightfall from a neighboring tint 
A flute-voieed woman sweetlj sang, 

Loose-haired, barefooted, hand Ln band, 

Young girls went tripping down the sand ; 



And youths and maidens, sitting in the union, 
llreamed o'er the old loud dream from which we 
wake too soon. 

At times their fishing-lines they plied, 

With an old Triton at the oar, 
Salt as the sea wind, tough and dried 

Asa Lean cusk from Labrador. 
Strange tales he told of wreck and storm, — 

Had seen the sea snake's awful form, 
And heard the ghosts on Haley's Isle eomplain, 
Speak him off shore, and beg a passage to old 
Spain ! 

And there, on breezy morns, they saw 
The fishing-schooners outward run, 
Their low-bent sails in tack and flaw 

Turned white or dark to shade and sun. 
Sometimes, in calms of closing day, 
They watched the spectral mirage play. 
Saw low, far islands looming tall and nigh, 
And ships, with upturned keels, sail like a sea 
the sky. 

Sometimes a cloud, with thunder black, 
Stooped low upon the darkening main, 
Piercing the waves along its track 
With the slant javelins of rain. 
And when west-wind and sunshine warm 
('based out to sea its wrecks of storm, 
They saw the prismy hues in thin spray showers 
Where the green buds of waves burst into white 
froth flowers. 

And when along the line of shore 

The mists crept upward chill and ilanrp, 
Stretched, careless, on their sandy floor 

Beneath the flaring lantern lamp, 
They talked of all things old and new, 
Read, slept, and dreamed as idlers do ; 
And in the unquestioned freedom of the tent, 
Body and o'er-taxed mind to healthful ease 
unbent. 

Once, when the sunset splendors died, 
And, trampling up the sloping sand, 
In lines outreaching far and wide, 

The white-nianed billows swept to land, 
Dim seen across the gathering shade, 
A vast and ghostly cavalcade, 
Tie \ sat around their lighted kerosene, 
Hearing the deep bass roar their every pause 
between. 

Then, urged thereto, the Editor 

Within his full portfolio dipped, 
Feigning excuse while searching for 

(With secret pride) his manuscript. 
His pale face flushed from eye to beard, 
With nervous cough his throat he cleared, 
And, in a voice so tremulous it betrayed 
The anxious fondness of an author's heart, he 
read : 



THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH. 

RlVERMOUTH Rocks are fair too see, 
By dawn or Bunset shone across. 

When tl lob of the sea has left them free, 

To dry their fringes of gold green moss : 

for then- the river comes winding down 
from salt sea meadows and uplands brown, 
And waves on the outer rocks afoam 
Shout to its waters, "Welcome home ! " 



THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH. 



217 



And fair are the sunny isles in view 

East of the grisly Head of the Boar, 
And Agamenticus lifts its blue 

Disk of a eloiul the woodlands o'er; 
And southerly, when the tide is down, 
'Twixt white sea-waves and sand-hills brown, 
The beach-birds dance and the gray gulls wheel 
< >ver a floor of burnished steel. 

Once, in the old Colonial days, 

Two hundred years ago and more, 
A boat sailed down through the winding ways 

Of Hampton River to that low shore, 
Full of a goodly company 
Sailing out on the summer sea, 
Veering to catch the land-breeze light, 
With the Boar to left and the Rocks to right. 

In Hampton meadows, where mowers laid 

Their scythes to the swaths of salted grass, 
" Ah, well-a-dav ! our hay must be made ! " 
A young man sighed, who saw them pass. 
Loud laughed his fellows to see him stand 
Whetting his scythe with a listless hand, 
Hearing a voice in a far-off song, 
Watching a white hand beckoning long. 

"Fie on the witch ! " cried a merry girl, 

As they rounded the point where Goody Cole 
Sat by her door with her wheel atwirl, 

A bent and blear-eyed poor old soul. 

" Oho ! " she muttered, "ye 're brave to-day ! 
But I hear the little waves laugh and say, 

' The broth will be cold that waits at home ; 
For it 's one to go, but another to come ! ' " 

"She's cursed," said the skipper; "speak her 
fair : 
I 'm scary always to see her shake 
Her wicked head, with its wild gray hair, 
. And nose like a hawk, and eyes like a snake." 
But merrily still, with laugh and shout, 
From Hampton River the boat sailed out, 
Till the huts and the flakes on Star seemed nigh, 
And they lost the scent of the pines of Rye. 

They dropped their lines in the lazy tide, 
Drawing up haddock and mottled cod ; 

They saw not the Shadow that walked beside, 
They heard not the feet with silence shod. 

But thicker and thicker a hot mist grew, 

Shot by the lightnings through and through ; 

And muffled growls, like the growl of a beast, 

Ran along the sky from west to east. 

Then the skipper looked from the darkening sea 
Up to the dimmed and wading sun ; 

But he spake like a brave man cheerily, 

" Yet there is time for our homeward run." 

Veering and tacking, they backward wore ; 

And just as a breath from the woods ashore 

Blew out to whisper of danger past, 

The wrath of the storm came down at last ! 

The skipper hauled at the heavy sail : 
" God be our help ! " he only cried, 
As the roaring gale, like the stroke of a flail, 

Smote the boat on its starboard side. 
The Shoalsmen looked, but saw alone 
Dark films of rain-cloud slantwise blown, 
Wild rocks lit up by the lightning's glare, 
The strife and torment of sea and air. 

Goody Cole looked out from her door : 

The Isles of Shoals were drowned and gone, 

Scarcely she saw the Head of the Boar 
Toss the foam from tusks of stone. 

She clasped her hands with a grip of pain, 

The tear on her cheek was not of rain ; 



" They are lost ! " she muttered, " boat and crew ! 
Lord, forgive me ! my words were true ! " 

Suddenly seaward swept the scpiall ; 

The low sun smote through cloudy rack ; 
The Shoals stood clear in the light, and all 

The trend of the coabt lay hard and black. 
But far and wide as eve could reach, 
No life was seen upon wave or beach ; 
The boat that went out at morning never 
Sailed back again into Hampton River. 

O mower, lean on thy bended snath, 

Look from the meadows green and low : 
Tire wind of the sea is a waft of death, 
The waves are singing a song of woe ! 
By silent river, by moaning sea, 
Long and vain shall thy watching be: 
Never again shall the sweet voice call, 
Never the white hand rise and fall ! 

O Rivermouth Rocks, how sad a sight 
Ye saw in the light of breaking day ! 
Dead faces looking up cold and white 

From sand and sea-weed where they lay. 
The mad old witch-wife wailed and wept, 
And cursed the tide as it backward crept : 
" Crawl back, crawl back, blue water-snake ! 
Leave your dead for the hearts that break ! " 

Solemn it was in that old day 

In Hampton town and its log-built church, 
Where side by side the coffins lay 

And the mourners stood in aisle and porch. 
In the singing-seats young eyes were dim, 
The voices faltered that raised the hymn, 
And Father Dalton, grave and stern, 
Sobbed through his prayer and wept in turn. 

But his ancient colleague did not pray, 
Because of his sin at fourscore years : 
He stood apart, with the iron-gray 

Of his strong brows knitted to hide his tears. 
And a wretched woman, holding her breath 
In the awful presence of sin and death, 
Cowered and shrank, while her neighbors thronged 
To look on the dead her shame had wronged. 

Apart with them, like them forbid, 

Old Goody Cole looked drearily round, 
As, two by two, with their faces hid, 

The mourners walked to the burying-ground. 
She let the staff from her clasped hands fall : 
"Lord, forgive us ! we're sinners all ! " 
And the voice of the old man answered her : 
" Amen ! " said Father Bachiler. 

So, as I sat upon Appledore 
In the calm of a closing summer day, 

And the broken lines of Hampton shore 
In purple mist of cloudland lay, 

The Rivermouth Rocks their story told ; 

And waves aglow with sunset gold, 

Rising and breaking in steady chime, 

Beat the rhythm and kept the time. 

And the sunset paled, and warmed once more 

With a softer, tenderer after-glow ; 
In the east was moon-rise, with boats off-shore 

And sails in the distance drifting slow. 
The beacon glimmered from Portsmouth bar, 
The White Isle kindled its great red star ; 
And life and death in my old-time lay 
Mingled in peace like the night and day ! 



"Well ! " said the Man of Books, " your story 

Is really not ill told in verse. 
As the Celt said of purgatory, 

One might go farther and fare worse." 



218 THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE. 




The Reader smiled ; and once again 


Part thy blue lips. Northern lake ! 




\\ lit, steadier voice took up bis strain, 


.Muss grown rocks, your silence break! 




While the fair singer Eroin the ueighboring tent 


Tell t in' tale, thou ancienl br< 




Drew near, and at bis side a graceful listener 


Thou, too, slide-worn Ossipee ! 




bent, 


Speak, and tell us how anil when 
Lived and died this king of men ! 

Wordless moans t ho ancieni pine ; 










Lake and mountain gi\ e no sign , 




THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE. 


Vain to trace this ring of stones ; 
Vain the search of crumbling hones: 




Where the Great Lake's sunny smiles 


1 deepest of all mysteries, 




Dimple round its hundred isles. 


And the saddest, silence is. 




And the mountain's granite ledge 






( Heaves 1 he water like a wedge, 


Nameless, noteless, claj with clay 




Ringed about with smooth, gray stones, 


M ingles slow 1 \ day by daj ; 




Rest the giant's mighty bones. 


Hut somewhere, for good or ill, 
That- dark soul is li\ ing still ; 




Close beside, in shade and -Irani, 


Somewhere yet that atom's force 




Laughs and ripples Melvin stream; 


Moves the Light-poised universe. 




Melvin water, mountain-born, 






All fair flowers its banks adorn ; 


Strange that on his burial-sod 




All the woodland's voices meet, 


Harebells bloom, and golden-rod. 




Mingling with its murmurs sweet. 


While the soul's dark horoscope 
Holds no starry sign of hop ! 




Over lowlands forest-grown, 


Is the 1 Inseen wit ii sight at odds J 




Over waters island-strown, 


Nature's pity more than God's ? 




Over silver-sanded beach, 






Leaf-locked bay and misty reach, 


Thus I mused by Melvin's side, 




Melvin stream and burial-heap, 


While the summer eventide 




Watch and ward the mountains keep. 


Made the woods and inland sea 
And the mountains mystery ; 




Who that Titan cromlech fills ? 


And the hush of earth and air 




Forest-kaiser, lord o' the hills V 


Seemed the pause before a prayer, — 




Knight who on the birchen tree 






Carved his savage heraldry V 


Prayer for him, for all who rest, 




Triest o' the pine-wood timples dim, 


Mother Earth, upon thy breast,— 




Prophet, sage, or wizard grim ? 


Lapped on Christian turf, or hid 
In rock-cave or pj ramid : 




Rugged type of primal man, 


All who sleep, as ail who live. 




( l-rim utilitarian, 


Well may need the prayer, "Forgive ! " 




Loving woods for hunt and prowl, 




- 


Lake and hill for fisH and fowl, 


Desert-smothered caravan, 




As the brown bear blind and dull 


Knee-deep dust that once was man, 




To the grand and beautiful : 


Battle-trenches ghastly piled, 
Ocean-floors with white bones tiled, 




Not for him the lesson drawn 


Crowded tomb and mounded sod. 




From the mountains smit with dawn. 


Dumbly crave that prayer to God. 




Star-rise, moon-rise, flowers of May, 






Sunset's purple bloom o\' day, — 


O the generations old 




Took hi- life up hue from thence, 


Over whom no church-bells tolled, 




Poor amid sueh affluence . 


Christlcss, lifting up blind eyes 
To the silence of the skies ! 




Haply unto hill and lice 


For the innumerable dead 




All too near akin was he : 


Is my soul disquieted. 




Unto him who stands afar 






Nature's marvels greatest, are; 
Who the mountain purple seeks 
Must not climb the higher peaks. 


Where be now these silent hosts ? 




Where the camping-ground of ghosi 
Where the spectral conscripts led 






To the white tents of tie' dead V 




Yet who knows in winter tramp, 


What strange shore or chart loss sea 
Holds the awful mystery V 




Or the midnight of the cam]), 
What, revealings faint and far, 




Stealing down from moon and star, 






Kindled in that human clod 


Then the warm sky stooped to make 




Thought of destiny and ( lid ? 


Double sunset in the lake ; 

While above I saw wit h it.. 




Stateliest forest pal riarch, 

( brand in robes of skin and bark, 


Range on range, t he mountains lit ; 

And the calm and splendor Btole 




What sepulchral mysteries. 


Like an answer to my son!. 




What weird funeral i bis ' 






What sharp wail, what drear lament, 


Iloir'st thou, of little faith, 




Back scared wolf and eagle sent ? 


What to thee the mountain sailh, 
What is whispered bj the trees! — 




Now, whate'er he may have been, 

Now he lies as ol her men ; 

On bis mound the partridge drums. 


" ( 'ast on (hid thj care for 1 ' 
Trust him, if thy sight he dim ? 
I )ouht for them is doubt of Him. 




There the noisy blue-jay comes; 






Rank nor name nor pomp has lie 


11 Blind must hi' their eloso shut eyes 




In the grave's democracy. 


Where like night the sunshine lies, 





THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE. 



219 



Fiery-linked, the self-forged chain 
Binding ever Bin to pain, 
Strong their prison-house of will, 
Hut without Be waitel b 

'• Not with hatred's undertow 
Doth the Lovi Et< rial flow; 
Every chain that spirits wear 
< Irutnbles in th breath of prayer ; 
And the peniti al 's desire 
Opens every gate of fire. 

'■Still Thy love, Christ arisen, 

these souls in prison ! 
: h all di'pt lis of sin and loss 
Drops the plummet of Thy cross ! 
Never yet abyss was found 
Deeper than that cross could sound ! " 

Therefore well may Nature keep 

! faith with all who sleep. 
Set her watch of hills around 
Christian grave and heathen mound, 
And to cairn and kirkyard lend 
Summer's flowery dividend. 

Keep, O pleasant Melvin stream. 
Thy sweet laugh in shade and gleam ! 
On the Indian's grassy tomb 
Swing, O flowers, your hells of bloom ! 
Deep below, as high above, 
Sweeps the circle of God's love. 



He paused and questioned with his eye 

The hearers' verdict on his song. 
A low voice asked : Is t well to pry 

Into the secrets which belong 
Only to God?— The life to be 
Is still the unguessed mystery : 
r n caled, unpierced the cloudj walls remain, 
We beat with dream and wish the soundless doors 
in vain. 

'• But faith beyond our sight ma\ 

He said : " The gracious Fatherhood 
Can only know above, below, 

rial purposes of good. 
Prom our tree heritage of will, 
The bitter springs of pain and ill 
Plow only in all worlds. The perfect day 
Of God is shadowless, and love is love alway." 

" I know." she said, "the letter kills; 

That on our and fields of strife 
And heat of clashing texts distils 

The clew of spirit and of life. 
But, searching still the written Wind, 
I fa in would find, Thus saith the Lor. I, 
A voucher for the hope I also feel 
I ii can give no wound beyond low's power 

to heal." 

" Pray," said the Man of Bi o'er 

nine too vast for time and place, 
i }o on, Sir Poet, ride once more 

5fOUT hobby at his old free i , 

But let him keep, with step discreet, 

The -olid earth beneath his 
In the great mystery which around us lies. 
The wisest is a fool, the fool Heaven-helped is 

wis i." 

The Traveller said : "If songs have creeds. 
Their i lioice of l hem let singers make ; 

But Art no other sanction needs 
Than beauty for its own fair sake. 

It grinds not in the mill of use. 

Nor asks for leave, nor begs excuse ; 



It makes the flexile laws it deigns to own, 
And gives its atmosphere its color and its tone. 

"Confess, old friend, your austere school 

Has left your fancy lit i le chance ; 
You square to reason's rigid rule 

The flowing outlines of romance. 
With con n I roin exercise, 

And chronic fear of compromise, 
You check the free play of your rhymes, to clap 
A moral underneath, and spring it like a trap," 

The sweet voice answered : "Better so 

Than bolder flights that know no check; 
Better to use the bit, than throw 

The reins all loi icy's neck. 

The liberal range of Art should be 
The breadth of < Ihristian liberty. 
Restrained alone by challenge and alarm 
Where its charmed footsteps tread the border 
land of harm 

"Beyond the poet's sweet dream lives 

The eternal epic of the man. 
He wisest is who only gives, 

True to himself, the best he can ; 
Who. drifting in the winds of praise, 
The inward monitor ob 
And, with the boldness that confesses fear, 
Takes in the crowded sail, and lets his conscience 
steer. ■ 

" Thanks for the fitting word he speaks, 
Nor less for doubtful word unspoken ; 
For the false model that he breaks, 

As for the moulded grace unbroken ; 
For what is missed and what remains, 
For losses which are truest gains, 
For reverence conscious of the Eternal eye, 
And truth too fair to need the garnish of a lie." 

Laughing, the Critic bowed. "I yield 

The point without another word ; 
Who ever yet a ease appealed 

Where beauty's judgment had been heard? 
And you, my good friend, owe to me 
Your warmest thanks for such a plea, 
As true withal as sweet. For my offence 
Of cavil, let her words be ample recompense." 

Across the sea one lighthouse star, 

With crimson ray that came and went, 
Revolving on its tower afar. 

Looked through the doorway of the tent. 
While outward, over sand-slopes wet, 
The lamp flashed down its yellow jet 
On the long wash of waves, with red and green 

of weltering weed through the white 
foam-wreaths seen. 



" ' Sing while we may, — another day 
May bring enough of sorrow ' ; — thus 
Our Traveller in his own sweet lay, 

His Crimean camp-song, hints to us," 
The lady said. "So let ir be ; 
Sing us a song," exclaimed all three. 
She smiled : " I can but marvel at your choice 
To hear our poet's words through my poor bor- 
rowed voice." 

1 lei- w indow opens to the bay, 
< )n glistening light or misty gray. 
And there at daw n and set of day 

In prayer she kneels : 
" Dear Lord ! " she saith, " to many a home 
Prom wind and wave the wanderers come; 
I only see the tossing foam 

Of stranger keels. 



220 



THE BROTHER OP MERCY. 



" Blown out and in by summer gales, 
The stately ships, with crowded sails, 
And sailors leaning o'er their rails, 

Before me glide ; 
They come, they go, but nevermore, 
Spice-laden from the Indian shove, 
I 6ee his swift-winged Isidore 
The waves divide 

" O Thou ! with whom the night is day 
And one the near and Ear away, 
Look out, on yon gray waste, ami say 
Where lingers he. 

Alive, perchance, mi some lone beach 

Or thirsty isle beyond the reach 
Of man, hi- hears the moeking speech 
Of wind ami sea. 

" O dread and cruel deep, reveal 
The secret which thj waves conceal. 
And, ye wild sea-birds, hither wheel 

And tell your tale. 
Let winds that tossed his raven hair 
A message from my lost one bear, — 
Some thought of me, a last fond prayer 

Or dying wail ! 

"Come, with your dreariest truth shut out 
The fears that haunt me round about ; 
O God ! I cannot bear this doubt 

That stifles breath. 
The worst is better than the dread : 
(live me but leave to mourn my dead 
Asleep in trust and hope, instead 

Of life in death ! 

It might have been the evening breeze 
That whispered in the garden trees, 
It might have been the sound of seas 

That rose and fell ; 
But, with her heart, if not her ear, 
The old loved voice she seemed to hear : 



I wait to meet thee : 
For all is well ! " 



be of cheer, 



The sweet voice into silence went, 
A silence which was almost pain 
As through it rolled the long lament, 
The cadence of the mournful main. 
Glancing his written pages o'er, 
The Reader tried his part once more ; 
Leaving the land of hackmatack and pine 
For Tuscan valleys glad with olive and with vine. 



THE BROTHER OF MERCY. 

♦ 

PlERO LUC \, known of all the town 
As the gray porter by the Pitti wall 
Where the noon shadows of the gardens fall, 
Sick and in dolor, watted to lay down 
His last sad burden, and beside his mat 
The barefoot monk of La Oertosa sat. 

Unseen, in square and blossoming garden 

drifted, 
Soft sunset lights through green Val d' Arno 

sifted ; 
Unheard, below the living shuttles shifted 
Backward and forth, and wove, in love or strife, 
In mirth or pain, the mottled web of life : 
But when at last came upward from the street 
Tinkl • "f bell and tread el' measured feet, 
The sick man stalled, strove to rise in vain, 
Sinking back heavily with a moan of pain. 



And the monk said, '"Tis but the Brotherhood 

Of Mercy going on some errand good : 

Their black masks by the palace-wall 1 see." 

Piero answered faintly, " Woe is me ! 

This day lor the first time in forty years 

In vain the lull hath sounded in my ears, 

Calling me with my brethren of the mask, 

Beggar and prince alike, to some new task 

Of love or pity, — baplj from the street 

To bear a wretch plague -stricken, or, with feet 

Hushed i<> the quickened ear ami feverish brain, 

To tread the crowded lazaretto's floors, 

Down the long twilight of the corridors, 

Midst tossing arms and faces full of pain. 

I loved the work : it was its own reward. 

I never counted on it to offset 

My sins, which are many, or make less my debt 

To the free grace and mercy of our Lord ; 

But somehow, father, it has come to be 

In these long years so much a part of me, 

1 should not know myself, if lacking it, 

But with the work the worker too would die, 

And in my place some other self would sit 

Joyful or sad, — what matters, if not I? 

And now all's over. Woe is me ! " — "My son," 

The monk said soothingly, " thy work is done ; 

And no more as a servant, but the guest 

Of God thou enterest thy eternal rest. 

No toil, no tears, no sorrow for the lost, 

Shall mar thy perfect bliss. Thou shalt sit down 

Clad in white robes, and wear a golden crown 

Forever and forever." — Piero tossed 

On his sick-pillow : " Miserable me ! 

I am too poor for such grand company ; 

The crown would be too heavy for this gray 

Old head ; and Ood forgive me if I say 

It would be hard to sit there night and day, 

Like an image in the Tribune, doing naught 

With these hard hands, that all my life have 

wrought, 
Not for bread only, but for pity's sake. 
I 'm dull at prayers : I could not keep awake, 
Counting my beads. Mine 's but a crazy head, 
Scarce worth the saving, if all else be dead. 
And if one goes to heaven without a heart, 
God knows he leaves behind his better part. 
I love my fellow-men : the worst I know 
I would do good to. Will death change me so 
That I shall sit among the lazy saints, 
Turning a deaf ear to the sore complaints 
Of souls that sutler ? Why, I never yet 
Left a poor dog in the strada hard beset, 
Or ass o'erladen ! Must I rate man less 
Than dog or ass, in holy selfishness '? 
Methinks (Lord, pardon, if the thought be sin !) 
The world id' pain were better, if therein 
One's heart might still be human, and desires 
Of natural pity drop upon its fires 
Some cooling tears." 

Thereat the pale monk crossed 
His brow, and, muttering, "Madman! thou art 

lost ! " 
Took up his pyx and fled ; and, left alone, 
The sick man closed his eyes with a great groan 
That sank into a prayer, " Thy will be done I " 

Then was he made aware, by soul or ear, 
Of somewhat, pure and holy bending o'er him, 
And of a voice like that of her who bore him, 
Tender and most compassionate: "Never Eeai ' 
For heaven is love, as Cod himself is love ; 
Thy work below shall be thy work above." 
And when he looked, lo ! in the stern monk's place 
He saw the shining of an angel's face ! 



The Traveller broke the pause. " I 've seen 
The Brothers down the long street steal, 

Black, silent, masked, the crowd between, 
And felt to doff my hat and kneel 



THE CHANGELING- 



221 




And the cloud of her soul was lifted.' 



With heart, if not with knee, in prayer, 

For blessings on their pious care." 

The Reader wipe. I his glasses: "Friends of 

mine, 
We'll try our home-brewed next, instead of 

foreign wine" 



THE CHANGELING. 

FOR the fairest maid in Hampton 

They needed not to search, 
Who saw young Anna Favor 

Come walking into church, — 

Or bringing from the meadows, 

At set of harvest-day, 
The frolic of the blackbirds, 

The sweetness of the hay. 

Now the weariest of all mothers, 
The saddest two-years bride, 

She scowls in the face of her husband, 
And spurns her child aside. 

'•Rake out the red coals, goodman, — 
For there the child shall lie, 

Till the black witch comes to fetch her 
Ami both up chimney fly. 

"It's never my own little daughter, 
It 's never my own." she said ; 

" The witches have stolen my Anna, 
And letfc me an imp instead. 

"O, fair and sweet was my baby, 
Blue eyes, and hair of gold ; 

But this is ugly and wrinkled. 
Cross, and cunning, and old. 

" I hate the touch of her fingers, 
I hate the feel oil her skin ; 



It 's not the milk from my bosom, 
But my blood, that she sucks in. 

" My face grows sharp with the torment : 
Look ! my arms are skin and bone ! — 

Rake open the red coals, goodman, 
And the witch shall have her own. 

" She '11 come when she hears it crying, 
In the shape of an owl or bat, 

And she '11 bring us onr darling Anna 
In place of her screeching brat. " 

Then the goodman, Ezra Dalton, 
Laid his hand upon her head : 

" Thy sorrow is great, O woman ! 
I sorrow with thee," he said. 

" The paths to trouble are many, 

And never but one sure way 
Leads out to the light beyond it : 

My poor wife, let us pray. " 

Then he said to the great All-Father, 
" Thy daughter is weak and blind ; 

Let her sight come back, and clothe her 
Once more in her right mind. 

"Lead her out of this evil shadow, 

Out of these fancies wild ; 
Let the holy love of the mother 

Turn again to her child. 

" Make her lips like the lips of Mary 

Kissing her blessed Son ; 
Let her hands, like the hands of Jesus, 

Rest on her little one. 

" Comfort the soul of thy handmaid 

Open her prison-door, 
And thine shall be all the glory 

And praise for evermore." 






THE MAID OF ATTITASH. 



Then into the face <>t' its mother 
The babj Looked up and smiled ; 

An. I the cloud "i her soul was lifted, 
Ami she knew In -I- Little child. 

A beam of the slant west sunshine 
Blade bhe wan face almost lair, 
te blue eyes' pal Lenl wondi i 
\n.l i in- ring - oL pale gold hair. 

She kissed L1 on Lip and Eorehead, 
She kissed it on cheek and chin, 

Ami she bared tier snov white bosom 
To t be lips so pale and thin. 

o, fair on her bridal morning 

Was the maid who blushed and smiled, 
But lain i to Ezra Dalton 

Looked the mothi c of his child. 

With more than a lover's fondness 
He stooped to her worn young face, 

And the nursing child and the mother 
He folded in one embrace, 

"Blessed he <!ud ! *' he murmured. 

" Blessed be < tod ! " she sa.nl ; 
"For I see, who once was blinded, — 

I live, who once was dead. 

"Now mount and ride, my goodman, . 

As t him Invest thy own soul ! 
Woe's me, if my wicked fancies 

Be the death of Goodj < fole ! " 

His horse he saddled and bridled, 
And into the night rode lie, — 

Now through the ureal black woodland, 
Now by the white-beached sea. 

He rode through the silent clearings, 
He came to tb i Eerry wide, 

\ml thrice he called to the boatman 
Asleep on the other side. 

lie si t h's horse to the river, 

lie swam to New hni \ town, 
And he called up .lust ice Sew-all 

In his nightcap and his gown. 

And the grave and worshipful justice 
(Upon whose soul be peace ! ) 

Set his name to the jailer's warrant 
For I roodwife < lole's release. 

Then through the night the hoof-beats 

Went sounding Like a flail; 
And < Joodj < !ole at cockcrow 

Came forth from Ipswich jail. 



" Here is a rhyme : — I hardly dare 

To venture on its theme worn out; 
What seems so sweet by Doon and Ayr 

Sounds simple silly hereabout; 
An I pipes by Lips Arcadian blown 
Are only tin horns at our own. 
Yet still the muse of pastoral walks with us, 
While Hosea Biglow sings, our new Theocritus." 



THE MAIDS OF ATTITASH. 

In shy and wave the white clouds swam, 
And the blue hills <>f Not bingham 

Through gaps of leafy green 

Across the lake were seen, — 



When, in the shadow of the ash 
That dreams its dream in Attitash, 

In the warm summer W( athet. 

Two maidens sat togethl 1. 

They sat and watched an idle mood 

'I'll, gleam and shade of lake and wood,— 

The beach the keen Lighi mute, 

The white sail of a boat, — 

Swan flocks of Lilies shoreward lying, 

In sweetness, not in music, dying",— 

Hardhack, and \ Lrgin's-bowi r, 
And white-spiked clethra flower. 

With careless ears they heard the | 
And breezy wash of Attitash, 

The wood bird's plaintn e cry, 

The locust's sharp reply. 

And teased the while, with playful hand, 
The shaggj dog of Newfoundland, 

Whose •mil h I'rolie spilled 

Their baskets berry-filled. 

Then one, the beautj <>f whose eyi b 

Was evermore a great surprise. 
Tossed back her queenly head, 
And, lightly laughing, said, — 

" No bridegroom's hand be mine to hold 
That, is not lined with yellow gold ; 

I tread no cot tage-floor ; 

I own no lover poor. 

" My love must come on silken wings, 
With bridal lights of diamond rings, — 

Not foul with kitchen smirch, 

With tallow-dip for torch." 

The other, on whose modest head 
Was lesser dower of beauty shed, 

With look for home hearths meet, 

And voice exceeding sweet, 

Answered, — " We will not rivals he; 

Take thou the gold, have love to me ; 
Mine be the cottage small, 
And thine the rich man's hall. 

" I know, indeed, that wealth is good; 

But lowly roof and simple food, 
With love that hath no doubt, 
Arc more than gold without." 

Hard by a farmer hale and young 
His cradle in the rye-field swung, 
Tracking the yellow plain 
With windrows of ripe grain. 

And still, whene'er he paused to whet 
His scythe, the sidelong glance he met 

Of large dark eyes, where strove 

false pride ami secret love. 

Be strong, young mower of the grain; 

That love shall overmatch disdain, 
Its instincts soon or late 
The heart shall vindicate. 

In blouse of gray, with fishing-rod, 
Half screened by leaves, n stranger trod 

The margin of the pond, 
Watching the group beyond. 

The supreme hours unnoted come; 

Unfelt«the turning tides of doom; 
And bo • he maids laughed on, 
Nor uj i.amed what Fate had done, — 



KALLUNDBORG CHURCH. 



223 



Nor knew the step was Destin 
That rustled in the birchen trees, 
As, with their lives forecast, 
ber and mower passed. 

Erelong by lake and rivulet Bide 
The summer roses paled and died, 

And Autumn's fingers sh< d 

The maple's Leaves oJ 

Through the long gold-hazed afternoon, 
Alone, but for the diving loon, 

The pari i idge in the j 

The black duck on the lake, 

Beneal h the shadow of the ash 
Sat man and maid by Attitash ; 
ixth and air made room 
For human hearts to bloom. 

Soft spread the cai pel s of the sod, 
And scarlet oak and golden-rod 

With blushes and with smiles 

Lit up the forest aisles. 

The mellow light the lake aslant, 
The pebbled margin's ripple-chant 
Atti mpered and low-toned, 

The tender mystery owned. 

And through the dream the lovers dreamed 
Sw< 't sounds stole in and soft lights streamed : 

The sunshine seemed to bless, 

The air was a caress. 

Not she who lightly laughed is there, 
With scornful toss of midnight hair, 

Her dark, disdainful eyes, 

And proud lip worldly-wise. 

Her haughty vow is still unsaid, 
But all she dreamed and coveted 

Wears, half to her surprise, 

The youthful farmer's guise ! 

With more than all her old-time pride 
She walks the rye-field at his side, 

( lareless of cot or hall, 

Since love transfigures all. 

Rich beyond dreams, the vantage-ground 
Of life is gained ; her hands have found 

The talisman of old 

That changes all to gold. 

While she who could for love dispense 
With all its glittering accidents, 

And trust her heart alone, 

Finds love and gold her own. 

What wealth can buy or art can build 
Awaits her ; but her cup is filled 

Even now unto the brim ; 

Her world is love and him ! 



The while he heard, the Book-man drew 

A length of make-believing face, 
With smothered mischief laughing through'. 

" Why, you shall sit in Ramsay's place, 
And, with his Gentle Shepherd, keep 
On Yankee hills immortal sheep, 
While lovelorn swains and maids the seas beyond 
Hold dreamy tryst around your huckleberry- 
pond."' 

The Traveller laughed ; " Sir Galahad 
Singing of love tiie Trouvere's lay ! 

How should he know the blindfold lad 
From one of Vulcan's forge-boys?" — " Nay, 



He better sees who stands outside 
Than they who in procession ride," 
The Readei answered: " selectmen and squire 
Miss, while they make, the show that wayside 
folks admire. 

" Here is a wild tale of the North, 

Our travelled friend will own as one 
Fit for a Norland Christmas hearth 

And lips of Christian Andersen. 
They tell it in the valleys green 
Of the fair island lie has seen. 
Low lying off the pleasant .Swedish shore, 
Washed by the Baltic .Sea, and watched by Elsi- 
nore." 



KALLUNDBORG CHURCH. 

'■ Tie stille, barn min ! 
[morgen konimer Fin, 
Fa'er din, 
Og gi'cr dig Esbern Snares oine og hjerte at lege med ! " 

Zealand Rhyme. 

" Build at Kallundborg by the sea 
A church as stately as church may be, 
And there shaft thou wed my daughter fair," 
Said the Lord of Nesvek to Esbern Snare 

And the Baron laughed. But Esbern said, 
" Though I lose my soul, I will Helva wed ! " 
And off he strode, in his pride of will, 
To the TroU who dwelt in Ulshoi hill. 

" Build, O Troll, a church for me 
At Kallundborg by the mighty sea ; 
Build it stately, and build it fair, 
Build it quickly," said Esbern Snare. 

But the sly Dwarf said, "No work is wrought 
By Trolls of the Hills, O man, for naught. 
What wilt thou give for thy church so fair?" 
" Set thy own price," quoth Esbern Snare. 

" When Kallundborg church is builded well, 
Thou must the name of its builder tell, 
Or thy heart and thy eyes must be my boon." 
" Build," said Esbern, " and build it soon." 

By night and by day the Troll wrought on ; 
He hewed the timbers, he piled the stone ; 
But day by day, as the walls rose fair, 
Darker and sadder grew Esbern Snare. 

He listened by night, he watched by day, 
He sought and thought, but he«dared not pray ; 
In vain he called on the Elle-maids shy, 
And the Neck and the Nis gave no reply. 

Of his evil bargain far and wide 
A rumor ran through the country-side ; 
And Helva of Nesvek, young and fair, 
Prayed for the soul of Esbern Snare. 

And now the church was wellnigh done ; 
One pillar it lacked, and one alone ; 
And the grim Troll muttered, " Fool thou art ! 
To-morrow gives me thy eyes and heart ! " 

By Kallundborg in black despair, 
Through wood and meadow, walked Esbern Snare, 
Till, worn and weary, the strong man sank 
Under the birches on Ulshoi bank. 

At his last day's work he heard the Troll 
Hammer and delve in the quarry's hole ; 
Before him the church stood large and fair : 
" I have builded my tomb," said Esbern Snare, 



224 



THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL. 



And he closed his eyes the sight to hide, 
When be heard a light step at his side : 
"O Esbern Snare! ' a sweet voice said, 
•• Would I mighl die now in thy stead ! " 

With a grasp by love and by fear made strong, 
I !<■ held her East, and In- Ik 'Id her long ; 
With tin- beating heart of a bird afeard, 
She hid her face in his flame-red beard. 

" O love ! " he cried, "let me look to-day 
In thine eyes ire mine arc plucked awaj ; 
Let me hold thee close, h fc me feel thy heart 
Ere mine by the Troll is torn apart ! 

" I sinned, O Helva, for love of thee ! 
Pray that the Lord Christ pardon me ! " 
But fast as she prayed, and faster still 
Hammered the Troll in L'lshoi hill. 

He knew, as he wrought, that a loving heart 

Was somehow baffling Ins evil art; 

For nnne than spill of Elf or Troll 

Is a maiden's prayer for her lover's soul. 

And Esbern listened, and caught the sound 
Of a Troll-wife singing underground : 
"To-morrow comes Fine, father thine: 
Lie still and hush thee, baby mine ! 

"Lie still, my darling ! next sunrise 

Thou 'It play with Esbern Snare's heart and 

eyes ! " 
"Ho ! ho! " quoth Esbern. "is that your game? 
Thanks to the Troll-wife, I know his name ! " 

The Troll he heard him, and hurried on 
To Kallundborg church with the lacking stone. 
"Too late, Gaffer Fine ! " cried Esbern Snare ; 
And Troll and pillar vanished in air ! 

That night the harvesters heard the sound 
Of a woman sobbing underground, 
And the voice of the Hill-Troll load with blame 
Of the careless singer who told his name. 

Of the Troll of the Church they sing the rune 
By the Northern Sea in the harvest moon ; 
And the fishers of Zealand hear him still 
Scolding his wife in Ulshoi hill. 

And seaward over its groves of birch 
Still looks the tower of Kallundborg church, 
Where, first at its altar, a wedded pair, 
Stood Helva of Nesvck and Esbern Snare! 



"What." asked the Traveller, "would our sires, 

The old Xorse story-tellers, say, 
Of sun-graved pictures, ocean wires, 

And smoking steamboats of to-day ? 
And this, lady, by your leave, 
Recalls your song of yester eve : 
Pray, let us have that Cable-hymn once more." 
'Hear, hear!" the Book-man cried, "the lady 
has the floor. 

" These noisy waves below perhaps 

To such a strain will lend their ear, 
With softer voice and lighter lapse 

Conn- stealing up the sands to hear, 
And what they (nice refused to do 
For old King Knut accord to you. 
Nay, even the fishes shall your listeners be, 
As once, the legend runs, they heard St. Anthony." 

O lonely bay of Trinity, 

<) dreary shores, give ear! 
Lean down unto the white-lipped sea 

The voice of God to hear ! 



From world to world his couriers fly, 
Thought winged and shod with fire; 

The angel of 1 1 is storm.} sky 
Rides down the sunken wire. 

What saith the herald of the Lord ? 

"The world's long strife is done; 
Close wedded b\ that mystic cord, 

Its continents are i 

" And one in heart, as one in blood, 
Shall all her peoples be ; 

The hands of human brotherhood 
Are clasped beneath the sea. 

" Through Orient seas, o'er Afric's plain 

And Asian mountains borne, 
The vigor of the Northern brain 

Shall nerve the world outworn. 

"From clime to clime, from shore to shore, 

Shall thrill the magic thread ; 
The new Prometheus steals once more 

The fire that wakes the dead." 

Throb on, strong pulse of thunder ! beat 
From answering beach to beach ; 

Fuse nations in thy kindly heat, 
And melt the chains of each ! 

Wild terror of the sky above, 

(Hide tamed and dumb below ! 
Bear gently, Ocean's carrier-dove, 

Thy errands to and fro. 

Weave on, swift shuttle of the Lord, 

Beneath the deep so far, 
The bridal robe of earth's accord, 

The funeral shroud of war ! 

For lo ! the fall of Ocean's wall 
Space mocked and time outrun ; 

And round the world the thought of all 
Is as the thought of one ! 

The poles unite, the zones agree, 

The tongues of striving cease ; 
As on the Sen of Calilee 

Ttie Christ is whispering, Peace ! 



" Glad prophecy ! to this at last," 

The Reader said, " shall all things come. 
Forgotten be the bugle's blast, 

And battle-music of the drum. 
A little while the world may run 
Its old mad way, with needle-gun 
And iron-clad, but truth, at last, shall reign : 
The cradle-song of Christ was never sung in 
vain ! " 

Shifting his scattered papers, "Here," 

lie said, as died the taint applause, 
" Is something that I found last y< ar 
Down on the island known as On's. 
1 had it from a fair-haired girl 
Who, oddly, bore the name of I'earl, 
(As if by some dull freak of circumstance,) 
Classic, or wellnigh so, in Harriet Stowe's ro- 
mance. " 



THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL. 

What Hecks the outer gray beyond 

The sundown's golden trail? 
The white flash of a sea-bird's wing, 

Or gleam of slanting sail V 



THE PALATINE. 



225 



Let young eyes watch from Neck and Point, 

And sea-worn elders pray, — 
The ghost of what ua> once a ship 

Is sailing up the hay ! 

From gray sea-fog, from icy drift, 
Prom peril and from pain, 

The home-hound fisher greets thy lights, 

( ) hundred harbored Maine ! 
But manj- a keel shall seaward turn, 

Ami many a sail outstand, 
When, till and white, the Dead Ship looms 

Against the dusk of land. 

She rounds the headland's hristling pines ; 

She threads the isle-set hay ; 
No spur of breeze can speed her on, 

Nor ebb of bide delay. 
Old men still walk the Isle of Orr 

Who tell her date and name, 
Old shipwrights sit in Freeport yards 

Who hewed her oaken frame. 

What weary doom of baffled quest, 

Thou sad sea-ghost, is thine ? 
What makes thee in the haunts of home 

A wonder and a sign ? 
No foot is on thy silent deck ? 

Upon thy helm no hand ; 
No ripple hath the soundless wind 

That smites thee from the laud ! 

For never comes the ship to port, 

Howe"er the breeze may be ; 
Just when she nears the waiting shore 

She drifts again to sea. 
No tack of sail, nor turn of helm, 

Nor sheer of veering side ; 
Stern- fore she drives to sea and night, 

Against the wind and tide. 

In vain o'er Harpswell Neck the star 

Of evening guides her in ; 
In vain for her the lamps are lit 

Within thy tower, Seguin ! 
In vain the harbor-boat shall hail, 

In vain the pilot call ; 
No hand shall reef her spectral sail, 

Or let her anchor fall. 

Shake, brown old wives, with dreary joy, 

Your gray-head hints of ill ; 
And, over sick-beds whispering low, 

Your prophecies fulfil. 
Some home amid yon birchen trees 

Shall drape its door with woe ; 
And slowly where the Dead Ship sails, 

The burial boat shall row ! 

From Wolf Neck and from Flying Point, 

From island and from main. 
From sheltered cove and tided creek, 

Shall glide the funeral train. 
The dead-boat with the bearers four, 

The mourners at her stern, — 
And one shall go the silent way 

Who shall no more return ! 

And men shall sigh, and women weep, 

Whose dear ones pale and pine, 
Aud sadly over sunset seas 

Await the ghostly sign. 
They know not that its sails are filled 

By pity's tender breath, 
Nor see the Angel at the helm 

Who steers the Ship of Death ! 



The legend has. I'm glad to see 

Your flying Yankee beat the Dutch." 
" Well, here is something of the sort 
Which one midsummer day I caught 
In Narragansett Bay, for lack of fish." 
•■ We wait," the Traveller said; "serve hot or 
cold your dish. ' : 



" Chill as a down-east breeze should be," 
The Book-raan said. "A ghostly touch 

15 



THE PALATINE. 

Leagues north, as fly the gull and auk, 
Point Judith watches with eye of hawk ; 
Leagues south, thy beacon flames, Montauk ! 

Lonely and wind-shorn, wood-forsaken, 
With never a tree for Spring to waken, 
For tryst of lovers or farewells taken, 

Circled by waters that never freeze, 
Beaten by billow and swept by breeze, 
Lieth the island of Manisees, 

Set at the mouth of the Sound to hold 
The coast lights up on its turret old, 
Yellow with moss and sea-fog mould. 

Dreary the land when gust and sleet 
At its doors and windows howl and beat. 
And Winter laughs at its fires of peat ! 

But in summer time, when pool and pond, 

Held in the laps of valley fond, 

Are blue as the glimpses of sea beyond ; 

When the lulls are sweet with brier- rose, 
And, hid in the warm, soft dells, unclose 
Flowers the mainland rarely knows ; 

When boats to their morning fishing go, 
And, held to the wind and slanting low, 
Whitening and darkening the small sails show, — 

Then is that lonely island fair ; 

And the pale health-seeker findeth there 

The wine of life in its pleasant air. 

No greener valleys the sun invite, 

On smoother beaches no sea-birds light, 

No blue waves shatter to foam more white ! 

There, circling ever their narrow range, 

Quaint tradition and legend strange 

Live on unchallenged, and know no change. 

Old wives spinning their webs of tow, 
Or rocking weirdly to and fro 
In and out the peat's didl glow, 

And old men mending their nets of twine, 
Talk together of dream and sign, 
Talk of the lost ship Palatine, — 

The ship that, a hundred years before, 
Freighted deep with its goodly store. 
In the gales of the equinox went ashore. 

The eager islanders one by one 

Counted the shots of her signal gun, 

And heard the crash when she drove right on ! 

Into the teeth of death she sped : 
(May God forgive the hands that fed 
The false lights over the rocky Head ! ) 

O men and brothers ! what sights were there ! 
White upturned faces, hands stretched in prayer ! 
Where waves had pity, could ye not spare ? 



226 



ABRAHAM DAVENPORT. 



Down Bwooped the wreckers, like birds of prey 

Tearing t be bearl of i be ship 

And the dead had never a word to say. 

And then, with ghastly shimmer and shine 
Over the rocks and the seething brine, 
I the wreck of the Palatine. 

In their cruel hearts, us thej homeward sped, 
'•The sea and the rocks are dumb," they s;iid ; 
" There '11 be no reckoning w ith i he (had." 

But the year went round, and when once more 
Along their foam-white curves of shore 
Thej heard the line-storm rave and roar, 

Behold ! again, with shimmer and shine, 
Over the rocks and the seething brine, 
The naming wreck of the Palatine ! 

So, haply in fitter words than these. 
Mending their nets on their patient knees 
The\ tell the legend of Manisees. 

Nor looks nor tones a doubt betray ; 

" It is known to ns all," they quietly say ; 

•• We too have seen it in our day.'' 

Is there, then, no death for a word once spoken ? 
Was never a deed but left its token 
Written on tables never broken . 

Do the elements subtle reflections give ? 
Do pictures of all the ages live 
On Nature's infinite negative, 

Which, half in sport, in malice half. 

She shows at times, with shudder or laugh, 

Phantom and shadow in photograph ? 

For still, on many a moonless night, 

From Kingston Head and from Montauk light 

The spectre kindles and burns insight. 

Now low and dim, now clear and higher, 
Leaps up the terrible Ghost of Fire, 
Then, slowly sinking, the flames expire. 

And the wise Sound skippers, though skies be fine, 
Reef their sails when they see the sign 
Of the blazing wreck of the Palatine ! 



Our friend objects to, which has grown, 

I Eear, a habit of my own. 
'T was written when the Asian plague drew near, 
And the land held its breath and paled with sud- 
den fear." 



" A fitter tale to scream than sing," 

The Book-man said. " Well, fancy, then," 
The Reader answered, "on the wing 

The sea birds shriek it, not for men, 
But m the ear of wave and breeze ! " 
The Traveller mused : " Your Manisees 
Is fairy-land : off Narragansett shore 
Who ever saw the isle or heard its name before? 

" 'T is some strange land of Flyaway, 

AVho.se dreamy shore the ship beguiles, 
St . I !i andan's in its sea-mist gray, 

Or sunset loom of Fortunate Isles ! " 
" No ghost, but solid turf and rock 
Is the good island known as Block," 
The Reader said. " For beauty and ior ease 
I chose its Indian name, soft-flowing Manisees ! 

"But let it pass ; hen- is a bit 

Of unrhymed story, with a hint 
Of the old preaching mood in it, 

The sort of sidelong moral squint 



ABRAHAM DAVENPORT. 

In the old days (a custom laid aside 

With breeches and cocked hats) the people sent 

Their wisest men to make the public laws. 

And so, from a brown homestead, where the 

Si nind 
Drinks the small tribute of the Mianas, 
Waved over by the woods of Rippowams, 
And hallowed by pure lives and tranquil deaths, 
Stamford sent up to th ■ councils of the State 
Wisdom and grace in Abraham Davenport. 

'T was on a May-day of the far old \ ear 
Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell 
Over tin; bloom and sweet life of the Spring, 

Over the fresh earth and the heaven of n i, 

A horror of great darkness, like the night 
In day of which the Norland sagas tell,— 
The Twilight of the Gods. The low-hung sky 
Was black with ominous clouds, save where its 

rim 
Was fringed with a dull glow, like that which 

climbs 
The crater's sides from the red hell below. 
Birds ceased to sing, and all the barn-yard fowls 
Roosted ; the cattle at the pasture bars 
Lowed, and looked homeward ; bats on leathern 

wings 
Flitted abroad ; the sounds of labor died ; 
Men prayed, and women wept ; all ears grew 

sharp 
To hear the doom-blast of the trumpet shatter 
The black sky, that the dreadful face of Christ 
Might look from the rent clouds, not as he looked 
A ioving guest at Bethany, but stern 
As Justice and inexorable Law. 

Meanwhile in the old State House, dim as 
ghosts, 
Sat the lawgivers of Connecticut, 
Trembling beneath their legislative robes. » 
"It is the Lord's Great Day ! Let us adjourn," 
Some said ; and then, as if with one accord, 
All eyes were turned to Abraham Davenport. 
He rose, slow cleaving with his steady v6ice 
The intolerable hush. " This well may be 
The Day of Judgment which the world awaits ; 
But be it so or not, I only know 
My present duty, and my Lord's command 
To occupy till he come. So at the post 
Where he hath set me in his providence, 
I choose, for one, to meet him face to face, — 
No faithless servant frightened from my task, 
But ready when the Lord of the harvest calls; 
And therefore, with all reverence, I would say, 
Let God do his work, we will see to ours. 
Bring in the candles." And they brought them 
in. 

Then by the flaring lights the Speaker read, 
Albeit with husky voice and shaking hands, 
An act to amend an act to regulate 
The shad and alewive fisheries. Whereupon 
Wisely and well spake Abraham Davenport, 
Straight to the question, with no figures of speech 
Save tiie ten Arab signs, yet not without 
The shrewd dry humor natural to the man : 
His awe-struck colleagues listening all the while, 
Between the pauses of his argument, 



THE MANTLE OF ST. JOHN DE HATHA. 



227 



To hear the thunder of the wrath of God 
Break from the hollow trumpet of the cloud. 

And there he stands in memory to this day, 
Erect, self-poised, a rugged face, half seen 
Against the background oi unnatural dark, 
A witness to the ages as they pass, 
That simple duty hath no place for fear. 



He & ase I : just then the ocean seemed 

To lift a half-faced moon in sight ; 
And, shore-ward, e'er the waters gleamed, 

From crest to crest, a line of light, 
Such as id. old, with solemn awe, 
The fishers by Gennesaret saw, 
When dry-shod" o'er it walked the Son of God, 
Tracking the waves with light where'er his san- 
dals trod. 

Silently for a space each eye 

Upon the sudden glory turned : 
Cool from the land the breeze blew by, 
The tent-ropes flapped, the long beach 
churned 
Its waves to foam ; on either hand 
Stretched, far as sight, the hills of sand ; 
With bays of marsh and capes of bush and tree, 
The wood's black shore-line loomed beyond the 
meadowy sea. 

The lady rose to leave. " One song, 

Or hymn," they urged, '"before we part." 
And she, with lips to which belong 

Sweet intuitions of all art, 
Give to the winds of night a strain 
Which they who heard would hear again ; 
And to her voice the solemn ocean lent, 
Touching its harp of sand, a deep accompani- 
ment. 



The harp at Nature's advent strung 

Has never ceased to play ; 
The song the stars of morning sung 

Has never died away. 

And prayer is made, and praise is given, 

By all things near and far ; 
The ocean looketh up to heaven, 

And mirrors every star. 

Its waves are kneeling on the strand, 

As kneels the human knee, 
Their white locks bowing to the sand, 

The priesthood of the sea ! 



They pour their glittering treasures forth, 
Their gilts of pearl they bring, 

And all the listening hills of earth 
Take up the song they sing. 

The green earth sends her incense up 
From many a mountain shrine ; 

From folded leaf and dewy cup 
She pours her sacred wine. 

The mists above the morning rills 
Rise white as wings of prayer ; 

The altar-curtains of the hills 
Are sunset's purple air. 

The winds with hymns of praise are loud, 

Or low with sobs of pain, — 
The thunder-organ of the cloud, 

The dropping tears of rain. 

With drooping head and branches crossed 

The twilight forest grieves, 
Or speaks with tongues of Pentecost 

From all its sunlit leaves. 

The blue sky is the temple's arch, 

Its transept eavth and air, 
The music of its starry march 

The chorus of a prayer. 

So Nature keeps the reverent frame 

With which her years began, 
And all her signs and voices shame 

The prayerless heart of man. 



The singer ceased. The moon's white rays 

Fell on the rapt, still face of her. 
" Ml 'ill il Allah .' He hath praise 

From all things," said the Traveller. 
" Oft from the desert's silent nights, 
And mountain hymns of sunset lights, 
My heart has felt rebuke, as in his tent 
The Moslem's prayer has shamed my Christian 
knee unbent." 

He paused, and lo ! far, faint, and slow 
The bells in Newbury's steeples tolled 
, The twelve dead hours ; the lamp burned low ; 
The singer sought her canvas fold. 
One sadly said, At break of day 
We strike our tent and go our way." 
But one made answer cheerily, " Never fear, 
We '11 pitch this tent of ours in type another year. " 



NATIONAL LTEIOS. 



THE MANTLE OF ST. JOHN DE MATHA, 

A LEGEND OF "THE RED, WHITE, AND BLUE," 
A. D. 1154-1864. 

A STRONG and mighty Angel, 

Calm, terrible, and bright, 
The cross is blended red and blue 

Upon his mantle white ! 



Two captives by him kneeling, 

Each on his broken chain, 
Sang praise to God who raiseth 

The dead to life again ! 

Dropping his cross-wrought mantle, 
"Wear this," the Angel said ; 

"Take thou, O Freedom's priest, its sign,- 
The white, the blue, and red." 



*28 



WHAT THE BIRDS SAID. 



Then rose up John de Matha 

In the strength tin Lord Christ gave, 

And begged through all the hind 01 France 
The ransom of the slave. 

The gates of tower and castle 

Before him open flew, 
The drawbridge at hiB coming fell, 

The door bolt backward drew. 

For all men owned his errand, 

And paid his righteous tax; 
\nd the hearts of lord and peasant 

Were in his hands as wax. 

At last, outbound from Tunis, 

His hark her anchor weighed, 
Freighted with seven-score Christian souls 

Whose ransom he had paid. 

But, torn by Faynim hatred, 

Her sails in tatters hung ; 
And on the wild w.aves, rudderless, 

A shattered hulk she swung. 

" God save us ! " cried the captain, 

" For naught can man avail ; 
O, woe betide the ship that lacks 

Her rudder and her sail ! 

" Behind us are the Moormen ; 

At sea we sink or strand : 
There 's death upon the water, 

There 's death upon the land ! " 

Then up spake John de Matha : 

"God's errands never fail! 
Take thou the mantle which 1 wear, 

And make of it a sail." 

They raised the cross-wrought mantle. 

The blue, the white, the red ; 
And straight before the wind off-shore 

The ship of Freedom sped. 

"God help us! " cried the seamen, 

"For vain is mortal skill: 
The good ship on a stormy sea 

Is drifting at its will." 

Then up spake John de Matha : 

" My mariners, never fear ! 
The Lord whose breath has filled her sail 

May well our vessel steer ! " 

So on through storm and darkness 

They drove for weary hours ; 
And lo ! the third gray morning shone 

On Ostia's friendly towers. 

And on the walls the watchers 

The ship of mercy knew, — 
They knew far off its holy cross, 

The red, the white, and blue. 

And the bells in all the steeples 

Rang out in glad accord, 
To welcome home to Christian soil 

The ransomed of the Lord. 

So runs the ancient legend 

By bard and painter told ; 
And lo ! the cycle rounds again, 

The new is as the old ! 

With rudder foully broken, 

And sails by traitors torn, 
Our country on a midnight sea 

Is waiting for the morn. 



Before her, nameless terror ; 

Behind, the pirate foe; 
The clouds are black above her, 

The sea is white below. 

The hope of all who suffer, 
The dread of all who wrong, 

She drifts in darkness and in storm, 
How long, O Lord ! how long ? 

But courage, () my mariners ! 

Ye shall not suller wreck, 
While up to (hid tiie freedman's prayers 

Are rising from your deck. 

Is not your sail the banner 
Which Cod hath blest anew, 

The mantle that De Matha wore, 
The red, the white, the blue ? 

Its hues arc all of heaven, — 

The red of sunset's dye, 
The whiteness of the moon-lit cloud, 

The blue of morning's sky. 

Wait cheerily, then, O mariners, 

For daylight and for land ; 
Tlie breath of Cod is in your sail, 

Your rudder is His hand. 

Sail on, sail on, deep-freighted 
With blessings and with hopes; 

The saints of old with shadowy hands 
Are pulling at your ropes. 

Behind ye holy martyrs 
tjptift the palm and crown; 

Before ye unborn ages send 
Their benedictions down. 

Take heart from John de Matb.a! — 

God's errands never fail ! 
Sweep on through storm and darkness, 

The thunder and the hail ! 

Sail on! The morning cometh, 

The port ye yet shall win; 
And all the bells of God shall ring 

The good ship bravely in ! 



WHAT THE BHiDS SAID. 

The birds against the April wind 

Flew northward, singing as they flew ; 

They sang, " The land we leave behind 

Has swords for corn-blades, blood for dew." 

" O wild-birds, flying from the South, 
What saw and heard ye, gazing down V 

"We saw the mortar's upturned mouth, 
The sickened camp, the blazing town ! 

"Beneath the bivouac's starry lamps, 
We saw your march-worn children die ; 

In shrouds of moss, in cypress swamps, 
We saw your dead uncoffmed lie. 

" We heard the starving prisoner's sighs, 
And saw, from line and trench, your sons 

Follow our flight with home-sick eyes 
Beyond the battery's smoking guns.'' 

"And heard and saw ye only wrong 
And pain," I cried, "O wing-worn flocks ?" 

" We heard," they sang, " the freedman's song, 
The crash of Slavery's broken locks 1 



LAUS DEO!— THE PEACE AUTUMN. 229 


" We saw from new, uprising States 


How they pale. 


The treason-nursing mischief spurned, 


Ancient myth and song and tale, 


As, crowding Freedom's ample gates, 


In this wonder of our days, 


The long-estranged and lust returned. 


When the cruel rod of war 




Blossoms white with righteous law, 


" O'er dusky faces, seamed and old, 


And the wrath of man is praise ! 


And hands horn-hard with unpaid toil, 




With hope in every rustling fold. 


Blotted out ! 


We saw your star-dropt Hag uncoil. 


All within and all about 




Shall a fresher Hie begin ; 


"And struggling up through sounds accursed, 


Freer breathe the universe 


A grateful murmur clomb the air ; 


As it rolls its heavy curse 


A whisper scarcely heard at first, 


On the dead and buried sin ! 


It filled the listening heavens with prayer. 






It is done ! 


" And sweet and tar, as from a star, 


In the circuit of the sun 


Replied a voice which shall not cease, 


Shall the sound thereof go forth. 


Till, drowning all the noise of war, 


It shall bid the sad rejoice, 


1 1 sings the blessed song of peace ! " 


It shall give the dumb a voice, 




It shall belt with joy the earth ! 


So to me, in a doubtful day 




Of chill and slowly greening spring, 


Ring and swing, 


Low stooping from the cloudy gray, 


Bells of joy ! On morning's wing 


The wild-birds sang or seemed to sing. 


Send the song of praise abroad ! 




With a sound of broken chains 


They vanished in the misty air, 


Tell the nations that He reigns, 


The song went with them in their flight ; 


Who alone is Lord and God ! 


But lo ! they left the sunset fair, 




And in the evening there was light. 










THE PEACE AUTUMN. 


LAUS DEO ! 


WRITTEN FOR THE ESSEX COUNTY AGRICUL- 




TURAL FESTIVAL, 1865. 


ON HEARING THE BELLS RING ON THE PASSAGE 




OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ABOL- 


Thank God for rest, where none molest, 


ISHING SLAVERY. 


And none can make afraid, — 




For Peace that sits as Plenty's guest 


It is done ! 


Beneath the homestead shade ! 


Clang of bell and roar of gun 




Send the tidings up and down. 


Bring pike and gun, the sword's red scourge, 


How the belfries rock and reel ! 


The negro's broken chains, 


How the great guns, peal on peal, 


And beat them at the blacksmith's forge 


Fling the joy from town to town ! 


To ploughshares for our plains. 


Ring, O bells ! 


Alike henceforth our hills of snow, 


Every stroke exulting tells 


And vales where cotton flowers ; 


Of the burial hour of crime. 


All streams that flow, all winds that blow, 


Loud and long, that all may hear, 


Are Freedom's motive-powers. 


Ring for every listening ear 




Of Eternity and Time ! 


Henceforth to Labor's chivalry 




Be knightly honors paid ; 


Let us kneel : 


For nobler than the sword's shall be 


God's own voice is in that peal, 


The sickle's accolade. 


And this spot is holy ground. 




Lord, forgive us ! What are we, 


Build up an altar to the Lord, 


That our eyes this glory see, 


O grateful hearts of ours ! 


That our ears have heard the sound ! 


And shape it of the greenest sward 




That ever drank the showers. 


For the Lord 




On the whirlwind is abroad ; 


Lay all the bloom of gardens there, 


In the earthquake he has spoken ; 


And there the orchard fruits ; 


He has smitten with his thunder 


Bring golden grain from sun and air, 


The iron walls asunder, 


From earth her goodly roots 


And the gates of brass are broken ! 






There let our banners droop and flow, 


Loud and long 


The stars uprise and fall ; 


Lift the old exulting song ; 


Our roll of martyrs, sad and slow, 


Sing with Miriam by the sea 


Let sighing breezes call. 


He has cast the mighty down ; 




Horse and rider sink and drown ; 


Their names let hands of horn and tan 


"He hath triumphed gloriously ! " 


And rough-shod feet applaud, 




Who died to make the slave a man, 


Did we dare, 


And link with toil reward. 


In our agony of prayer, 




Ask for more than He has done ? 


There let the common heart keep time 


■ When was ever his right hand 


To such an anthem sung 


Over any time or land 


As never swelled on poet's rhyme, 


Stretched as now beneath the sun V 


Or thrilled on singer's tongue. 



230 TO THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS.— THE ETERNAL GOODNESS. 


Song of our burden and relief, 


What words can drown that bitter cry ? 


< )f peace and long annoy ; 


What tears wash out that stain of death ? 


The passion of our mighty grief 


What oaths confirm your broken i'aitli V 


Ami our exceeding 303 ! 






Prom you alone the guaranty 


A Bong "i praise to Him who rilled 


Of union, freedom, peace, we claim ; 


'I'll harvests sown in tears, 


We urge no conqueror's terms of shame. 


Ami gave each field a double yield 




To feed our battle-years ! 


.Mas ! no victor's pride is ours; 




We bend above our triumphs won 


A song of faith that trusts the end 


Like David o'er his rebel son. 


To match the good begun, 




Nor doubts the power of Love to blend 


Be men, not beggars. Cancel all 


The hearts of men as our ! 


By one brave, generous act ion ; trust 




Your better instincts, and be just ! 





Make all men peers before the law, 




Take hands from oil' the negro's throat, 


TO THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. 


Give black and white an equal vote. 


O PEOPLE-CHOSEN ! are ye not 


Keep all your forfeit lives and lands, 


Likewise the chosen of the Lord, 


But give the common law's redress 


To do his will and speak his word ? 


To labor's utter nakedness. 


From the loud thunder-storm of war 


Revive the old heroic will; 


Not man alone hath called ye forth, 


Be in the right as brave and strong 


But he, the God of all the earth ! 


As ye have proved yourselves in wrong. 


The torch of vengeance in your hands 


Defeat shall then be victory, 


He quenches ; unto Him belongs 


Your loss the wealth of full amends, 


The solemn recompense of wrongs. 


And hate be love, and foes be friends. 


Enough of blood the land has seen, 


Then buried be the dreadful past, 


Ami not by cell or gallows : stair 


Its common slain be mourned, and let 


Shall ye the way of God prepare. 


All memories soften to regret. 


Say to the pardon-seekers, — Keep 


Then shall the Union's mother-heart 


Your manhood, bend no suppliant knees, 


Her lost and wandering ones recall, 


Nor palter with unworthy pleas. 


Forgiving and restoring all, — 


Above your voices sounds the wail 


And Freedom break her marble trance 


Of starving men ; we shut in vain 


Above the Capitolian dome, 


Our eyes to Pillow's ghastly stain. 


Stretch hands, and bid ye welcome home ! 



OCCASIONAL POEMS. 



THE ETERNAL GOODNESS. 

Flu ends ! with whom ray feet have trod 
The quiet aisles of prayer, 

Glad witness to your zeal for God 
And love of man 1 bear. 

1 trace your lines of argument ; 

Your logic linked and strong 
I weigh as one who dreads dissent, 
And fears a doubt as wrong. 

But still my human hands are weak 

To hold your iron creeds : 
Against the words ye bid me speak 

My heart within me pleads. 

Who fathoms the Eternal Thought'? 

Who talks of scheme and plan ? 
The Lord is God ! He needeth not 

The poor device of man. 



I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground 
Ye tread with boldness shod ; 

I dare not fix with mete and bound 
The love and power of God. 

Ye praise His justice ; even such 

His pitying love I deem : 
Ye seek a king ; I fain would touch 

The robe that hath no seam. 

Ye see the curse which overbroods 

A world of pain and loss ; 
I hear our Lord's beatitudes 

And prayer upon the cross. 

More than your schoolmen teach, within 

Myself, alas ! I know ; 
Too dark ye cannot paint the sin, 

Too small the merit show. 

I bow my forehead to the dust, 

I veil mine eyes for shame. 
And urge, in trembling self-distrust, 

A prayer without a claim. 



OUR MASTER. 



231 



I see the wrong that round me lies, 

I feel the guilt within ; 
I hear, with groan and travail-cries, 

The world confess its sin. 

Yet, in the maddening maze of things, 
And tossed by storm and flood, 

To one fixed stake my spirit clings; 
I know that God is good ! 

Not mine to look where cherubim 

And seraphs may not see, 
But nothing can be good in Him 

Which evd is in me. 

The wrong that pains my soul below 

I dare not throne above : 
I know not of His hate, — I know 

Hi* goodness and His love. 

1 dimly guess from blessings known 

Of greater out of sight, 
And, with the chastened Psalmist, own 

His judgments too are right. 

I long for household voices gone, 

For vanished smiles I long, 
But God hath led my dear ones on, 

And He can do no wrong. 

I know not what the future hath 

Of marvel or surprise, 
Assured alone that life and death 

His mercy underlies. 

And if my heart and flesh are weak 

To bear an untried pain, 
The bruised reed He will not break, 

But strengthen and sustain. 

No offering of my own I have, 
Nor works my faith to prove ; 

I can but give the gifts He gave, 
And plead His love for love. 

And so beside the Silent Sea, 

I wait the muffled oar ; 
No harm from Him can come to me 

On ocean or on shore. 

I know not where His islands lift 

Their f ronded palms in air ; 
I only know I cannot drift 

Beyond His love and care. 

O brothers ! if my faith is vain, 

If hopes like these betray, 
Pray for me that my feet may gain 

The sure and safer way. 

And Thou, O Lord ! by whom are seen 

Thy creatures as they be, 
Forgive me if too close I lean 

My human heart on Thee ! 



OUR MASTER. 

Immortal Love, forever full, 

Forever flowing free, 
Forever shared, forever whole, 

A never-ebbing sea ! 

Our outward lips confess the name 

All other names above ; 
Love only knoweth whence it came, 

And comprehendeth love. 



Blow, winds of God, awake and blow 

The mists of earth away ! 
Shine out, O Light Divine, and show 

How wide and far we stray ! 

Hush every lip, close every book, 

The strife of tongues forbear ; 
Why forward reach, or backward look, 

For love that clasps like air ? 

We may not climb the heavenly steeps 
To bring the Lord Christ down : 

In vain we search the lowest deeps, 
For him no depths can drown. 

Nor holy bread, nor blood of grape, 

The lineaments restore 
Of him we know in outward shape 

And in the flesh no more. 

He cometh not a king to reign ; 

The. world's long hope is dim ; 
The weary centuries watch in vain 

The clouds of Heaven for him. 

Death comes, life goes ; the asking eye 

And ear are answerless ; 
The grave is dumb, the hollow sky 

Is sad with silentness. 

The letter fails, and systems fall, 

And every symbol wanes ; 
The Spirit over-brooding all 

Eternal Love remains. 

And not for signs inlieaven above 

Or earth below they look, 
Who know with John his smile of love, 

With Peter his rebuke. 

In joy of inward peace, or sense 

Of sorrow over sin. 
He is his own best evidence, 

His witness is within. 

No fable old, nor mythic lore, 

Nor dream of bards and seers, 
No dead fact stranded on the shore 

Of the oblivious years ; — 

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet 

A present help is he ; 
And faith has still its Olivet, 

And love its Galilee. 

The healing of his seamless dress 

Is by our beds of pain ; 
We touch him in life's throng and press, 

And we are whole again. 

Through him the first fond prayers are said 

Our lips of childhood frame, 
The last low whispers of our dead 

Are burdened with his name. 

O Lord and Master of us all ! 

Whate'er our name or sign, 
We own thy sway, we hear thy call, 

We test our lives by thine. 

Thou judgest us ; thy purity 

Doth all our lusts condemn ; 
The love that draws us nearer thee 

Is hot with wrath to them. 

Our thoughts lie open to thy sight ; 

And, naked to thy glance, 
Our secret sins are in the light 

Of thy pure countenance. 



232 



THE VANISHEES. 



Thy healing pains, a keen distress 

Thy tender Light shines in; 
Thy sweetness ie the bitterness, 

Thy grace the pang of sin. 

Yet, weak and blinded though we be, 

Thou dost our service own ; 
We bring our varying gifts to thee, 

And thou rejectest none. 

To thee our full humanity, 

Its joys and pains, belong ; 
The wrong of man to man on thee 

Indicts a deepei wrong. 

Who hates, hates thee, who loves becomes 

Therein to thee allied ; 
All sweet accords of hearts and homes 

In thee are multiplied. 

Deep strike thy roots, O heavenly Vine, 

Within our earthly soil, 
Most human and yet most divine, 

The flower of man and God I 

O Love ! O Life ! Our faith and sight 

Thy presence maketh one : 
As through transfigured clouds of white 

We trace the noon-day sun. 

So, to our mortal eyes subdued, 
Flesh- veiled, but not concealed, 

We know in thee the fatherhood 
And heart of God revealed. 

We faintly hear, we 'dimly see, 

In differing phrase we pray ; 
But, dim or clear, we own in thee 

The Light, the Truth, the Way ! 

The homage that we render thee 

Is still our Father's own ; 
Nor jealous claim or rivalry 

Divides the Cross and Throne. 

To do thy will is more than praise, 
As words are less than deeds, 

And simple trust can find thy ways 
We miss with chart of creeds. 

No pride of self thy service hath, 

No place for me and mine ; 
Our human strength is weakness, death 

Our life, apart from thine. 

Apart from thee all gain is loss, 

All labor vainly done ; 
The solemn shadow of thy Cross 

Is better than the sun. 

Alone, O Love ineffable ! 

Thy saving name is given ; 
To turn aside from thee is hell, 

To walk with thee is heaven ! 

How vain, secure in all thou art, 

Our noisy championship ! — 
The sighing of the contrite heart 

Is more than flattering lip. 

Not mine the bigot's partial plea, 

Nor thine the zealot's ban ; 
Thou well canst spare a love of thee 

Which ends in hate of man. 

Our Friend, our Brother, and our Lord. 

What may thy service be ? — 
Nor name, nor form, nor ritual word, 

But simply following thee. 



We bring no ghastly holocaust, 

We pile do gra^ en stone ; 
He serves thee best, who loveth most 

His brothers and thy own. 

Thy litanies, sweet offices 

Of love and gratitude ; 
Thy sacramental liturgies, 

The joy of doing good. 

In vain shall waves of incense drift 

The vaulted nave around, 
In vain the minster turret lift 

Its brazen weights of sound. 

The heart must ring thy Christmas bells, 

Thy inward altars raise ; 
Its faith and hope thy canticles, 

Anil its obedience praise ! 



THE VANISHERS. 

Sweetest of all childlike dreams 

In the sweet Indian lore, 
Still to me the legend seems 

Of the shapes who flit before. 

Flitting, passing, seen and gone, 
Never reached nor found at rest, 

Baffling search, but beckoning on 
To the Sunset of the Blest. 

From the clefts of mountain rocks, 
Through the dark of lowland firs, 

Flash the eyes and flow the locks 
Of the mystic Vanishers ! 

And the fisher in his skiff, 
And the hunter on the moss, 

Hear their call from cape and cliff, 
See their hands the birch-leaves toss. 

Wistful, longing, through the green 
Twilight of the clustered pines, 

In their faces rarely seen 
Beauty more than mortal shines. 

Fringed with gold their mantles flow 
On the slopes of westering knolls ; 

In the wind they whisper low 
Of the Sunset Laud of Souls. 

Doubt who may, O friend of mine ! 

Thou and I have seen them too ; 
On before with beck and sign 

Still they glide and we pursue. 

More than clouds of purple trail 

In the gold of setting day; 
More than gleams of wing or sail, 

Beckon from the sea-mist gray. 

Glimpses of immortal youth, 

Gleams and glories seen and flown, 

Far-heard voices sweet with truth, 
Airs from viewless Eden blown, — 

Beauty that eludes our grasp, 

Sweetness that transcends our taste, 

Loving hands we may not clasp, 
Shining feet that mock our haste, — 

Gentle eyes we closed below, 
Tender voices heard once more, 

Smile and call us, as they go 
On and onward, still before. 



REVISITED.— BRYANT ON HIS BIRTHRIGHT. 



233 



Guided thus, O friend of mine! 
Let us walk our little way, 

Kn.i\v ; >. > i»\ each beds >ning sign 
That we arc in >t quite astray. 

Chase we still, with baffled feet, 
Smiling eye and waving hand, 

Sought and seeker soon shall meet, 
Lost and found, in Sunset Land! 



REVISITED. 

READ AT THE "LAURELS," ON THE MERRIMACK, 

6th month, L865. 

The roll of drams and the bugle's wailing 

Vex the air of our vales no more ; 
The spear is beaten to hooks of pruning, 

The share is the sword the soldiers wore ! 

Sing soft, sins; low, our lowland river, 

Under thy banks of laurel bloom ; 
Softly and sweet, as the hour beseemeth, 

Sing us the songs of peace and home. 

Let all the tenderer voices of nature 

Temper the triumph and chasten mirth. 

Full of the infinite love and pity 

For fallen martyr and darkened hearth. 

But to Him who gives us beauty for ashes, 
And the oil of joy for mourning long, 

L st thy lulls give thanks, and all thy waters 
Break into jubilant waves of song ! 

Bring us the airs of hills and forests, 
The sweet aroma of birch and pine. 

Give us a waft of the north-wind laden 
With sweetbrier odors and breath of kine ! 

Bring us the purple of mountain sunsets, 
.Shadows of clouds that rake the hills. 

The green repose of thy Plymouth meadows, 
The gleam and ripple of Campton rills. 

Lead us away in shadow and sunshine, 
Slaves of fancy, through all thy miles, 

The winding ways of Pemigewasset, 
And Winnipesaukee's hundred isles. 

Shatter in sunshine over thy ledges, 
Laugh in thy plunges from fall to fall ; 

Play with thy fringes of elms, and darken 
Under the shade of the mountain wall. 

idle-song of thy hillside fountains 
Here in thy glory and strength repeat ; 
Give us a taste of thy upland music, 
Show us the dance of thy silver feet. 

Into thy dutiful life of uses 

Pour the music and weave the flowers ; 
With the song of birds and bloom of meadows 

Lighten and gladden thy heart and ours. 

Sing on ! bring down, O lowland river, 
The joy of the hills to the waiting sea ; 

The wealth of the vales, the pomp of mountains, 
The breath of the woodlands, bear with thee. 

Here, in the calm of thy seaward valley, 
Mirth and labor shall hold their truce ; 

Dance of water and mill of grinding, 
Both are beauty and both are use. 



Type of the Northland's strength and glory, 
Pride and hope of our home and race, — 

Freedom lending to rugged labor 
Tints of beauty and lines of grace. 

Once again, O beautiful river, 

Hear our greetings and take our thanks ; 
Hither we come, as Eastern pilgrims 

Throng to the Jordan's sacred banks. 

For though by the Master's feet untrodden, 
Though never his word has stilled thy waves. 

Well for us may thy shores be holy, 

With Christian altars and saintly graves 

And well may we own thy hint and token 
Of fairer valleys and streams than these, 

Where the rivers of God are full of water, 
And full of sap are his healing trees ! 



THE COMMON QUESTION. 

Behind us at our evening meal 

The gray bird ate his fill, 
Swung downward by a single claw, 

And wiped his hooked bill. 

He shook his wings and crimson tail, 

And set his head aslant, 
And, in his sharp, impatient way, 

Asked, "What does Charlie want?" 

"Fie, silly bird ! " I answered, ' l tuck 

Your head beneath your wing, 
And go to sleep " ; — but o'er and o'er 

He asked the self-same thing. 

Then, smiling, to myself I said : — 

How like are men and birds ! 
We all are saying what he says, 

In action or in words. 

The boy with whip and top and drum, 

The girl with hoop and doll, 
And men with lands and houses, ask 

The question of Poor Poll. 

However full, with something more 

We fain the bag would cram; 
We sigh above our crowded nets 

For fish ths,t never swam. 

No bounty of indulgent Heaven 

The vague desire can stay ; 
Self-love is still a Tartar mill 

For grinding prayers alway. 

The dear God hears and pities all ; 

He knoweth all our wants ; 
And what we blindly ask of him 

His love withholds or giants. 

And so I sometimes think our prayers 

Might well be merged in one ; 
And nest and perch and hearth and church 

Repeat, "Thy will be done." 



BRYANT ON HIS BIRTHRIGHT. 

We pra use not now the poet's art, 
The rounded beauty of his song ; 

Who weighs him from his life apart 
Must do his nobler nature wrong. 



234 



HYMN.— THOMAS STARR KING. 



Not for the eye, familiar grown 

With charms to common sight denied, — 

■ us gift he shares alone 
With him who walked on Rydal-side; 

Not for rapt hymn nor woodland lay 

Too grave for smiles, too sweet for tears; 
We speak Ins praise who wears to day 

The glorj oi Ins seventy years. 

When Peace brings Freedom in her train, 
Let happy Lips his songs rehearse; 

His life is now Ins noblest strain, 
His manhood better than his verse! 

Thank God ! his hand on Nature's keys 
Its canning keeps at life's full span ; 

But, dimmed and dwarfed, in times like these, 
The poet seems beside the man ! 

So be it ! let the garlands die, 

The singer's wreath, the painter's meed, 
Let our names perish, if thereby 

Our country may be saved and freed ! 



HYMN 



FOK THE OPENING OF THOMAS STAKR KING'S 
HOUSE OF WORSHIP, 1864. 

Amidst these glorious works of Thine, 
The solemn minarets of the pine, 
And awful Shasta's icy shrine, — 

Where swell Thy hymns from wave and gale, 
And organ-thunders never fail, 
Behind the cataract's silver veil, — 

Oui; puny walls to Thee we raise, 

Our poor reed music sounds Thy praise : 

Forgive, O Lord, our childish ways ! 

For, kneeling on these altar-stairs, 
We urge Thee not with selfish prayers, 
Nor murmur at our daily cares. 

Before Thee, in an evil day, 

Our country's bleeding heart we lay, 

And dare not ask Thy hand to stay ; 

But, through the war-cloud, pray to Thee 
For union, but a union free, 
With peace that comes of purity ! 



That Thou wilt bare thy arm to save 
And, smiting through this Red Sea wave, 
Make broad a pathway for the slave! 

For us, confessing all our need, 

We trust nor rite nor word nor deed, 

Nor yet the broken staff of creed. 

Assured alone that Thou art good 
To each, as to the multitude, 
Eternal Love and Fatherhood, — 

Weak, sinful, blind, to Thee we kneel, 
Stretch dumbly forth our hands, and feel 
Our weakness is our strong appeal. 

So, by these Western gates of Even 
We wait to >ee with t By Eorgiven 
The opening Golden Gate of Heaven ! 

Suffice it, now. Ill time to be 
Shall holier altars rise to thee, — 
Thy Church our broad humanity ! 

White flowers of love its walls shall climb, 
Soft bells of peace shall ring its chime, 
Its days shall all be holy time. 

A sweeter song shall then be heard, — 
The music of the world's accord 
Confessing Christ, the Inward Word ! 

That song shall swell from shore to shore, 
One hope, one faith, one love, restore 
The seamless robe that Jesus wore. 



THOMAS STARR KING. 

The great work laid upon his twoscore years 
Is done, and well done. If we drop our tears, 
Who loved him as few men were ever loved, 
We mourn no blighted hope nor broken plan 
With him whose life stands rounded and ap- 
proved 
In the full growth and stature of a man. 
Mingle, O bells, along the Western slope, 
With your deep toll a sound of faith and hope ! 
Wave cheerily still, O banner, half-way down, 
From thousand-masted bay and steepled town ! 
Let the strong organ with its loftiest swell 
Lift the proud sorrow of the land, and tell 
That the brave sower saw his ripened grain. 
O East and West ! O morn and sunset twain 
No more forever !— has he lived in vain 
Who, priest of Freedom, made ye one, and told 
Your bridal service from his lips of gold . 



AMONG THE HILLS. 



235 



AMOIG the hills, 

AND OTHER POEMS. 

1868. 



TO ANNIE FIELDS 

THIS LITTLE VOLUME. 

DESCRIPTIVE OF SCENES WITH WHICH SHE IS FAMILIAR, 

I- < . i; A I i; I I I I V OFFERED. 



PRELUDE. 

Along the roadside, like the flowers of gold 
That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought, 
Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod, 
Ami the red pennons of the cardinal-flowers 
Hang motionless upon (heir upright staves. 
The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind, 
Wing-weary with its long flight from the south, 
Unfelt; yet, closely scanned, yon maple leaf 
With faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams, 
Confesses it. Th ' the wall 

St;il is the noon-silence with his sharp alarm. 
A single hay-cart down the dusty road 
( ireaks slowly, with its driver fast asleep 
On the load's top. Against tin.' neighboring hill, 
Huddled along the stone wall's shady side,_ 
The sheep show white, as if a snowdrift still 
! (efied the dog-star. Through the open door 
A drowsy smell of flowers — gray heliotrope. 
And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette — 
Comes faintly in, and silent chorus lends 
To the pervading symphony of peace. 

No time is this for hands long overworn 

To task their strength : anil (unto Him be praise 

Who giveth quietness !) the stress and strain 

u s that did the work of centuries 

ased, and we can draw our breath once 

more 
Freely and full. So, as yon harvesters 
Make glad their nooning underneath the elms 
With tale and riddle and old snatch of song, 
I lay aside grave themes, and idly turn 
The leaves of memory's sketch-book, dreaming 

o'er 
Old summer pictures of the quiet hills, 
And human life, as quiet, at their feet. 

\nd yet no all. A farmer's: son, 
Proud of field-lore and harvi st craft and feeling 
All their fine possibilities, how rich 
Ami restful even poverty and toil 
Become when beauty, harmony, and love- 
Sit at their humble hearth as angels sat 
At evening in the patriarch's tent, when man 
Makes labor noble, and his fa.mer's frock 
The symbol of a Christian chivalry 
Tender and just and generous to her 
Who clothes with grace all duty ; still, I know 
Too well the picture has another side, — 
How wearily the grind of toil goes on 
Where love is wanting, how tlie eye and ear 
And heart are starved amidst the plenitude 
Of nature, and how hard and colorless 



Is life without an atmosphere. I look 
Across the lapse of half a century, 
And call to mind old homesteads, where no flower 
Told that the spring had come, but evil weeds, 
Nightshade and rough-leaved burdock in the place 
Of the sweet doorway greeting of the rose 
And honeysuckle, where the house walls seemed 
Blistering in sun, without a tree or vine 
To cast the tremulous shadow of its leaves 
Across the curtainless windows from whose panes 
Fluttered the signal rags of shiftlessness ; 
Within, the cluttered kitchen-floor, unwashed 
(Broom-clean I think they called it) ; the best 

room 
Stifling with cellar damp, shut from the air 
In hot midsummer, bookless, pietureless 
Save the inevitable sampler hung 
Over the fireplace, or a mourning piece, 
A green-haired woman, peony-cheeked, beneath 
Impossible willows ; the wide-throated hearth 
Bristling with faded pine-boughs half concealing 
Thepiled-up rubbish at the chimney's back; 
And, iii sad keeping with all things about them, 
Shrill, querulous women, sour and sullen men, 
Untidy, loveless, old before their time, 
With scarce a human interest save their own 
Monotonous round of small economies, 
Or the poor scandal of the neighborhood ; 
Blind to the beauty everywhere revealed, 
Treading the May-flowers with regardless feet ; 
For them the song-sparrow and the bobolink 
Sang not, nor winds made music in the leaves ; 
For them in vain October's holocaust 
Burned, gold and crimson, over all the hills, 
The sacramental mystery of the woods. 
Church-goers, fearful of the unseen Powers, 
But grumbling over pulpit-tax and pew-rent, 
Saving, as shrewd economists, their souls 
And winter pork with the least possible outlay 
Of salt and sanctity ; in daily life 
Showing as little actual comprehension 
Of Christian charity and love and duty, 
As if the Sermon on the Mount had been 
Outdated like a last year's almanac : 
Rich in broad woodlands and in half-tilled fields, 
And yet so pinched and bare and comfortless, 
The veriest straggler limping on his rounds, 
The sun and air his sole inheritance, 
Laughed at a poverty that paid its taxes, 
And hugged his rags in self-complacency ! 

Nor such should be the homesteads of a land 
Where whoso wisely wills and acts may dwell 
As king and lawgiver, in broad-acred state, 
With beauty, art, taste, culture, books, to make 
His hour of leisure richer than a life 



236 



AMONG THE HILLS. 



Of fourscore to the barons of old time, 
Our yeoman should be equal to his home 
Set iii the fair, green ralleys, purple walled, 
A man to match his mountains, not to creep 
Dwarfed and abased below them. 1 would fain 
ln this Light way (of which I needs must own 

With the knife-grinder of whom Canning Bings, 
" Story, God bless you ! I have none to tell you ! ") 

Invite the eye to see and heart to feel 

The beauty and the j<>\ w it bin their reach, — 

II. .me, and home hives, and the beatitudes 

Of nature free to all. Haply in years 

That wait to take the places of our own. 

Heard where some breezy balcony looks down 

On happy homes, or where the lake in the moon 

Sleeps dreaming of the mountains, fair as Ruth, 

In i he old Hebrew pastoral, at the feet 

Of Boaz, even this simple lay of mine 

Ma\ seem the liurden of a prophecy, 

Finding its late fulfilment in a change 

Slow as the oak's growth, lifting manhood up 

Through broader culture, finer manners, love, 

And reverence, to the level of the hills. 

O Golden Age, whose lighl is of the dawn, 
And not of sunset, forward, not behind, 

Flood the new heavens and earth, and with thee 

bring 
All the old virtues, whatsoever things 
Are pure and honest and of good repute, 
But add thereto whatever bard has sung 
Or seer has told of when in trance and dream 
They saw the Happy [sles of prophecy ! 
Let Justice hold her scale, and Truth divide 
Between the right and wrong ; but give the heart 
The freedom of its fair inheritance ; 
Let the poor prisoner, cramped and starved so 

long, 
At Nature's table feast his ear and eye 
With joy and wonder ; let all harmonies 
Of sound, form, color, motion, wait upon 
The princely guest, whether in soft attire 
Of leisure clad, or the coarse frock of toil, 
And, lending life to the dead form of faith, 
Give human nature reverence for the sake 
Of One who bore it, making it divine 
With the ineffable tenderness of God ; 
Let common need, the brotherhood of prayer, 
The heirship of an unknown destiny, 
The unsolved mystery round about us, make 
A man more precious than the gold of Ophir. 
Sacred, inviolate, unto whom all things 
Should minister, as outward types and signs 
Of the eternal beauty which fulfils 
The one great purpose of creation, Love, 
The sole necessity of Earth and Heaven ! 



A MONO THE HILLS. 

For weeks the clouds had raked the hills 
And vexed the vales with raining, 

And all the woods were sad with mist, 
And all the brooks complaining. 

At last, a sudden night-storm tore 

The mountain veils asunder, 
And swept the valley clean before 

The besom of the thunder. 

Through Sandwich notch the west-wind sanj; 

Good morrow to the cotter ; 

\ud once again ChoCOXUa's horn 

Of shadow pierced the water. 



Above his broad lake Ossipee, 
Once more the sunshine wearing, 

Stooped, tracing on that silver shield 
ills grim armorial bearing. 

Clear drawn against the hard blue sky • 
The peaks had winter's keenness; 

And, close on autumn's frost, the vales 
Had more than June's fresh greenness. 

Again the sodden forest floors 

With golden Lights were checkered, 

Once more rejoicing leaves in wind 
And sunshine danced ami flickered. 

Ft- was as if the summer's late 

Atoning for its sadness 
Had borrowed every season's charm 

To end its days in gladness. 

I call to mind those banded vales 

Of shadow and of shining, 
Through which, my hostess at my side, 

I drove in day's declining. 

We held our sideling way above 

The river's whitening shallows. 
By homesteads old, with wide-flung bams 

Swept through and through by swallows, — 

By maple orchards, belts of pine 

And larches climbing darkly 
The mountain slopes, and, over all, 

The great peaks rising starkly. 

You should have seen that long hill-range 
With gaps of brightness riven, — 

How through each pass and hollow streame I 
The purpling lights of heaven, — 

Rivers of gold-mist flowing down 

from far celestial foun tains, — 
The great sun flaming through the rifts 

Beyond the wall of mountains ! 

We paused at last where home-bound cows 
Brought down the pasture's treasure, 

And in the barn the rhythmic flails 
Beat out a harvest measure. 

We heard the night-hawk's sullen plunge, 
The crow his tree-mates calling : 

The shadows lengthening down the slopes 
About our feet were falling. 

And through them smote the level sun 

In broken lines of splendor, 
Touched the gray rocks and made the green 

Of the shorn grass more tender. 

The maples bending o'er the gate, 

Their arch of leaves just tinted 
With yellow warmth, the golden glow 

Of coming autumn hinted. 

Keen white between the farm-house showed, 
And smiled on porch and trellis, 

The fair democracy of flowers 
That equals cot and palace. 

And weaving garlands for he* dog, 

'1'wixt eludings and caresses, 
A human flower of childhood shook 

The sunshine from her tresses. 

On either hand we saw the signs 

Of fancy and of shrewdness. 
Where taste had wound its arms of vines 

Round thrift's uncomely rudeness. 



AMONG THE HILLS. 



237 



The sun-brown farmer in his frock 
Shook hands, and called to Mary : 

Bare-aniH'd, as Juno might, she came, 
White-aproned from her dairy. 

Her air, her smile, her motions, told 
Of womanly completeness ; 

A music as of household songs 
Was in her voice of sweetness. 

Not beautiful in curve and line, 
But something more and I letter, 

The secret charm eluding art, 
Its spirit, not its letter ; — 

An inborn grace that nothing lacked 

Of culture or appliance, — 
The warmth of genial courtesy, 
The calm of self-reliance. 

Before her queenly womanhood 
How dared our hostess utter 

The paltry errand of her need 

To buy her fresh-churned butter ? 

She led the way with housewife pride, 
Her goodly store disclosing, 

Full tenderly the golden balls 
With practised hands disposing. 

Then, while along the western hills 
We watched the changeful glory 



Of sunset, on our homeward way, 
I heard her simple story. 

The early crickets sang ; the stream 
Plashed through my friend's narration : 

Her rustic patois of the hills 
Lost in my free translation. 

" More wise," she said, "than those who swarm 

Our hills in middle summer, 
She came, when June's first roses blow, 

To greet the early comer. 

" From school and ball and rout she came, 

The city's fair, pale daughter, 
To drink the wine of mountain air 

Beside the Bearcamp Water. 

" Her step grew firmer on the hills 
That watch our homestea Is over ; 

On cheek and lip, from summer fields, 
She caught the bloom of clover. 

" For health comes sparkling in the streams 

From cool Chocorua stealing : 
There 's iron m our Northern winds ; 

Our pines are trees of healing. 

"She sat beneath the broad-armed elms 

That skirt the mowing-meadow, 
And watched the gentle west-wind weave 

The grass with shine and shadow. 




"Upon his pitchfork leaning." — Page 329. 



238 



AMONG THE HILLS. 



" Beside her, from the summer heat 
To Bhare her grateful screening, 

With forehead Dared, bhe farmer stood, 
I I'D his pitchfork leaning. 

" Framed in its damp, dark locks, his face 
I [ad n"t bing met c common, — 

Strong, manly, true, the tendi rm ss 
And pride beloved oi' woman. 

" She looked up, glowing with the health 
The countr] air had brought her, 

And. Laughing, said: ' Von lack a wife, 
Your mother Lacks a daughter. 

1 ' l To mend your frock and bake your bread 

Yi>n do not need a lady : 
Be sure among these brown old homer. 

Is some one wait ing ready, — 

" ' Some fair, sweet girl with skilful hand 
And cheerful heart tor treasure, 

W'hn never played with ivory keys, 
Or danced the polka's measure.' 

" He bent his black brows to a frown, 

He set his white teeth tightly. 
' "1' is well,' he said, ' for one like you 

To choose for me so lightly. 

" ' You think, because my life is rude 

I take no note of sweetness : 
1 tell you love has naught to do 

With meetness or unmeetness. 

" ' Itself its best excuse, it asks 

No leave of pride or fashion 
When silken zone or homespun frock 

It stirs with throbs of passion. 

1 ' You think me deaf and blind : you bring 

Your winning graces hither 

As free as if from eradle-time 

We two had played together. 

" 'You tempt me with your laughing eyes, 
Your cheek of sundown's blushes, 

A motion as of waving grain, 
A music as of thrushes. 

" 'The plaything of your summer sport, 
The spells you weave around me 

You cannot at your will undo, 
Nor leave me as you found nie. 

'' ' You go as lightly as you came, 

Your life is well without me ; 
What care you that these hills will close 

Like prison- walls about me? 

" ' No mood is mine to seek a wife, 

< )r daughter for my mother : 
Who loves you loses in that love 
• All power to love another ! 

" ' I dare your pity or your scorn, 
With pride your own exceeding ; 

I fling my heart into your lap 
Without a word of pleading.' 

" She looked lip in his Face of pain 

Soarchly,yet so tender : 
' Ami if I Lend ymi mine,' she said, 

• Will you forgive the lender? 

Nor frock nor tan can hide the man ; 
And see you not, my farmer, 

nd fond a woman waits 
Behind this silken armor? 



" 'I love you: on that love alone, 

And not my worth, presuming, 
Will Mm not trust for summer fruit 

The tree in May-day blooming ? ' 

"Alone the hangbird overhead, 
Hi-, hair-swung cradle straining. 

Looked down to see love's miracle, — 
The giving that is gaining. 

" And so the farmer found a wile, 

His mother found a daughter : 
There looks no happier home than hers 

On pleasant Bearcamp water. 

" Flow ei s spring to blossom where she walks 

The careful ways of duty ; 
Our hard, still lines of life with her 

Are flowing curves of beauty 

" Our homes are cheerier for her sake, 
Our door-yards brighter blooming, 

And all about the social air 
Is sweeter for her coming. 

' ' Unspoken homilies of peace 

Her daily life is preaching ; 
The still refreshment of the dew 

Is her unconscious teaching. 

" And never tenderer hand than hers 

Unknits the brow of ailing ; 
Her garments to the sick man's car 

Have music in their trailing. 

" And when, in pleasant harvest moons, 

The youthful huskers gather, 
Or sleigh-drives on the mountain ways 

Defy the winter weather, — 

" In sugar-camps, when south and warm 
The winds of March are blowing, 

And sweetly from its thawing veins 
The maple's blood is flowing, — 

" In summer, where some lilied pond 

Its virgin zone is bearing, 
Or where the ruddy autumn fire 

Lights up the apple-paring, — 

" The coarseness of a ruder time 

Her finer mirth displaces, 
A subtler sense of pleasure fills 

Each rustic sport she graces. 

" Her presence lends its warmth and health 

To all who come before it. 
If woman lost us Eden, such 

As she alone restore it 

" For larger life and wiser aims 

The farmer is her debtor ; 
Who holds to his another's heart 

Must needs lie worse or better. 

" Through her his civic service shows 

A purer-toned ambition ; 
No double consciousness divides 

The 111:111 and politician. 

"In party's doubtful ways he trusts 

Her instincts to determine ; 
At t lie Loud polls, the thought of her 

Recalls Christ's .Mountain Sermon. 

" He owns her logic of the heart, 

And wisdom of unreason, 
Supplying, while he doubts and weighs, 

The needed word in season. 



THE CLEAR VISION. 



239 



" He sees with pride her richer thought, 

Her fancy's freer ranges ; 
And love thus deepened to respect 

[s proof against all changes. 

•' And if she walks at ease in ways 
His Ee i are slow to travel. 

And if she reads with cultured eyes 
What his may scarce unravel, 

I - Still clearer, for her keener sight 

Of beauty and of wonder, 

I I li mis the meaning of the hills 
lie dwelt from childhood under. 

" And higher, warmed with summer lights, 

Or winter-crowned and hoary, 
The ridged horizon lifts for him 

Its inner veils of glory. 

" He has his own free, bookless lore, 
The lessons nature taught him, 

The wisdom which the woods and hills 
And toiling men have brought him : 

'• The steady force of will whereby 
Her flexile grace seems sweeter ; 
The sturdy counterpoise which makes 
Her woman's life completer : 

" A latent fire of soul which lacks 

No breath of love to fan it ; 
And wit, that, like his native brooks, 

Plays over solid granite. 

" How dwarfed against his manliness 

She sees the poor pretension, 
The wants, the aims, the follies, born 

Of fashion and convention ! 

" How life behind its accidents 
Stands strong and self-sustaining, 

The human fact transcending all 
The losing and the gaming. 

''And so, in grateful interchange 

Of teacher and of hearer, 
Their lives their true distinctness keep 

While daily drawing nearer. 

"And if the husband or the wife 
In home's strong light discovers 

Such slight defaults as failed to meet 
The blinded eyes of lovers, 



" Why need we care to ask ? — who dreams 
Without their thorns of roses, 

Or wonders that the truest steei 
The readiest spark discloses '? 

" For still in mutual sufferance lies 

The secret of true living : 
Love scarce is love that never knows 

The sweetness of forgiving. 

" YVe send the Squire to General Court, 
He takes his young wife thither ; 

No prouder man election day 
Rides through the sweet June weather. 

" He sees with eyes of manly trust 

All hearts to her inclining ; 
Not less for him his household light 

That others share its shining." 

Thus while my hostess spake, there grew 

Before me, warmer tinted 
And outlined with a tenderer grace, 

The picture that she hinted. 

The sunset smouldered as we drove 
Beneath the deep hill-shadows. 

Below us wreaths of white fog walked 
Like ghosts the haunted meadows. 

Sounding the summer night, the stars 
Dropped down their golden plummets ; 

The pale arc of the Northern lights 
Rose o'er the mountain summits, — 

Until, at last, beneath its bridge. 
We heard the Bearcamp flowing, 

And saw across the maple lawn 

The welcome home-lights glowing ; — 

And, musing on the tale I heard, 
'T were well, thought I, if often 

To rugged farm-life came the gift 
To harmonize and soften ; — 

If more and more we found the troth 

Of fact and fancy plighted, 
And culture's charni and labor's strength 

In rural homes united, — 

The simple life, the homely hearth 
With beauty's sphere surrounding, 

And blessing toil where toil abounds 
With graces more abounding. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THE CLEAR VISION. 

I nin but dream ! I never knew 

What charms our sternest season wore, 

Was never yet the sky so blue. 
Was never earth so white before. 

Till now I never saw ^he glow 

Of sunset on yon hills of snow, 

And never learned the bough's designs 

Of beauty in its leafless lines. 

Did ever such a morning break 
As that my eastern windows see ? 

Did ever such a moonlight take 
Weird photographs of shrub and tree V 



Rang ever bells so wild and fleet 
The music of the winter street '? 
Was ever yet a sound by half 
So merry as yon school-boy's laugh ? 

O Earth ! with gladness overfraught, 

No added charm thy face hath found ; 
Within my heart the change is wrought, 
My footsteps make enchanted ground. 
Forth couch of pain and curtained room 
Forth to thy light and air I come, 
To find in all that meets my eyes 
The freshness of a glad surprise. 

Fair seem these winter days, and soon 
Shall blow the warm west-winds of spring 



240 



THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL. 



To set the unbound rills in tune, 

And hither urge fch bluebird's wing. 
The pales shall laugh in Bowers, tin: woods 
Grow misty green with leafing buds, 
And violets and wind flowers sway 
Against the throbbing heart of May. 

Break forth, my lips, in praise, and own 

The wiser love severely kind ; 
Since, richer for its chastening grown, 

I see, whereas I once was blind. 
The world, Father ! hath not wronged 
With loss the life by thee prolonged; 
But still, with everj added year, 
More beautiful thy works appear ! 

As thou hast made thy world without, 

Make thou more fair my world within ; 
Shine through its lingering clouds of doubt: 

Rebuke its haunt inn' shapes of sin; 
Pill, brief or long, m\ granted span 
Of life with love to t bee and man ; 
Strike when thou wilt the hour of rest, 
But let my last days be my best ! 

2d mo., 18G8. 



THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL. 

The land was pale with famine 

And racked with fever-pain; 
The frozen fiords were Ashless, 

The earth withheld her grain. 

Men saw the boding Fylgja 

Before them come and go, 
And, through their dreams, the Urdar-moon 

From west to east sailed slow I 

Jarl Thorkell of Thevera 

At Yule-time made his vow; 
On Rykdal's holy Doom-stone 

lie slew to Frey his cow. 

To bounteous Frey he slew her ; 

To Skuld, the younger Norn, 
Who watches over birth and death, 

He gave her calf unborn. 

And his little gold-haired daughter 

Took up the sprinkling-rod, 
And smeared with blood the temple 

And the wide lips of the god. 

Hoarse below, the winter water 
Ground its ice-blocks o'er and o'er ; 

Jets of foam, like ghosts of dead waves, 
Rose and fell along the shore. 

The red torch of the Jokul, 

Aloft in icy space, 
Shone down on the bloody Horg-stones 

And the statue's craven face. 

And closer round and grimmer 

Beneath its baleful light 
The Jotun shapes of mountains 

Came crowding through the night. 

The gray-haired Hersir trembled 

As a flame by wind is blown ; 
A weird power moved his white lips, 

And their voice was not his own ! 

" The iEsir thirst ! " he muttered ; 

" The gods must have more blood 
Before the tun shill blossom 

Or fish shall fill the flood. 



"The . K-ir thirst and hunger, 
And hence are blight and ban ; 

The mouths of the strong gods water 
For the flesh and blood of man ! 

"Whom shall we give the strong ones? 

Not warriors, sword on thigh; 
But let i he nursling infant 

And bedrid old man die." 

" So be it ! " cried the young men, 
" There needs nor doubl nor parle " ; 

But, knitting hard his red brows, 
In silence stood the Jarl. 

A sound id' woman's weeping 
At the temple door was heard, 

But the old men bowed their white heads 
And answered not a word. 

Then the Dream-wife of Thingvalla, 

A Vala young and fair. 
Sang softly, stirring with her breath 

The veil of her loose hair. 

She sang: " The winds from Alfheim 
Bring never sound of strife ; 

The gifts for Frey the meetest 
Are not of death, but life. 

" He loves the grass-green meadows, 
The grazing kine's sweet breath ; 

He loathes your bloody Horg-stones, 
Your gifts that smell of death. 

"No wrong by wrong is righted, 

No pain is cured by pain ; 
The blood that smokes from Doom-rings 

Falls back in redder rain. 

"The gods are what you make them, 

As earth shall Asgard prove ; 
And hate will come of hating, 

And love will come of love. 

" Make dole of skyr and black bread 
That old and young may live ; 

And look to Frey for favor 
When first like Frey you give. 

" Even now o'er Njord's sea-meadows 

The summer dawn begins: 
The tun shall have its harvest, 

The fiord its glancing tins." 

Then up and swore Jail Thorkell : 

" By Gimli and by Hel, 
Vala of Thingvalla, 

Thou singest wise and well! 

"Too dear 'he ^Esir's favors 
Bought with our children's lives ; 

Better die than shame in living 
Our mothers and our wives. 

"The full shall give his portion 

To him who hath most need; 
Of curdled skyr ami black broad 

Be daily dole decreed." 

He broke from off.his neck-chain 

Three links of beaten gold; 
And each man, at his bidding 

Brought gifts for young and old. 

Then mothers nursed their children, 
And daughters fed their sires, 

And Health sat down with Plenty 
Before the next Yule tires. 



THE TWO RABBIS. -THE MEETING. 



241 



The Horg stones stand in U\ kdal ; 

The Doom-ring still remains; 
Bui tin- snows ot a thousand winters 

Have washed away the stains. 

Christ ruleth now ; (Ik- .Fsir 
Have found their twilight dim ; 

And, wiser than sin- dreamed, of old 
The Vala sang of Him ! 



THE TWO RABBIS. 

TfiE Rabbi Nathan, twoscore years and ten, 
Walked blameless through the evil world, and 

then, 
Just as the almond blossomed in his hair, 
Met a temptation all too strong to bear, 
And miserably sinned. So, adding not 
Falsehood to guilt, he left his seat, and taught 
No more among the elders, but went out 
From the great congregation girt about 
With sackcloth, and with ashes on his head, 
Making his gray locks grayer. Long he prayed, 
Smiting his breast ; then, as the Book he laid 
Open before him for the Bath-Col's choice, 
Pausing to hear that Daughter of a Voice, 
Behold the royal preacher's words : " A friend 
Loveth at all times, yea, unto the end ; 
And for the evil day thy brother lives." 
Marvelling, he said : " It is the Lord who gives 
Counsel in need. At Ecbatana dwells 
Rabbi Ben Isaac, who all men excels 
In righteousness and wisdom, as the trees 
Of Lebanon the small weeds that the bees 
Bow with their weight. I will arise, and lay 
My sins before him." 

And he went his way 
Barefooted, fasting long, with many prayers ; 
But even as one who, followed unawares, 
Suddenly in the darkness feels a hand 
Thrill with its touch his own, and his cheek 

fanned 
By odors subtly sweet, and whispers near 
Of words he loathes, yet cannot choose but hear, 
So, while the Rabbi journeyed, chanting low 
The wail of David's penitential woe, 
Before him still the old temptation came, 
And mocked him with the motion and the shame 
Of such desires that, shuddering, he abhorred 
Himself ; and, crying mightily to the Lord 
To tree his soul and cast the demon out, 
Smote with his staff the blankness round about. 

At length, in the low light of a spent day, 
The towers of Ecbatana far away 
Rose on the desert's rim ; and Nathan, faint 
And footsore, pausing where for some dead saint 
The faith of Islam reared a domed tomb. 
Saw some one kneeling in the shadow, whom 
He greeted kindly : " .May the Holy One 
Answer thy prayers, O stranger ! " Whereupon 
The shape stood up with a, loud cry, and then, 
Clasped in each other's arms, the two gray men 
Wept, praising Him whose gracious providence 
Made their paths one. But straightway, as the 

sense 
Of his transgression smote him, Nathan tore 
Himself away : " O friend beloved, no more 
Worthy am I to touch thee, for I came, 
Foul from my sins, to tell thee all my shame. 
Haply thy prayers, since naught availeth mine, 
May purge my soul, and make it white like thine. 
Pity me, O Ben Isaac, I have sinned ! " 

Awestruck Ben Isaac stood. The desert wind 
Blew his long mantle backward, laying bare 
The mournful secret of his shirt of hair. 

16 



"I too, O friend, if not in act," he said. 

"In thought have verily sinned. Hast thou not 

read, 
' Better the eye should see than that desire 
Should wander' ? Burning with a hidden fire 
That tears and prayers quench not, I come to thee 
For pitj and tor help, as thou to me. 
Pray for me, O my friend I " but Nathan cried, 
" Pray thou for me, Ben Isaac ! " 

Side by side 
In the low sunshine by the turban sitone 
They knelt ; each made his brother's woe his own, 
Forgetting, in the agony and stress 
( )f pitying love, his claim of selfishness ; 
Peace, for his friend besought, his own became ; 
His prayers were answered in another's name ; 
And, when at last they rose up to embrace, 
Each saw God's pardon in his brother's face ! 

Long after, when his headstone gathered moss, 
Traced on the targum-marge of Onkelos 
In Rabbi Nathan's hand these words were read 
" Hope not the cure of sin tit/ s, if ;.< dead; 
Forget it 'hi tun's service, and the debt 
Thou runs' not pay the angels shall forget ; 
Heaven's gate is shut to him n-Jio comes n'oiie; 
Save thou a soul, and it shall save thy owit ! " 



THE MEETING. 

The elder folks shook hands at last, 

Down seat by*seat the signal passed. 

To simple ways like ours unused, 

Half solemnized ami half amused, 

With long-drawn breath and shrug, my guest 

His sense of glad relief expressed. 

Outside the hills lay warm in sun ; 

The cattle in the meadow-run 

Stood half-leg deep ; a single bird 

The green repose above us stirred. 

" What part or lot have you," he said, 

"In these dull rites of drowsy-head V 

Is silence worship V Seek it where 

It soothes with dreams the summer air, 

Not in this close and rude- benched hall, 

But where soft lights and shadows fall, 

And all the slow, sleep-walking hours 

Glide soundless over grass and flowers ! 

From time and place and form apart. 

Its holy ground the human heart, 

Nor ritual-bound nor templeward 

Walks the free spirit of the Lord ! 

Our common Master did not pen 

His followers up from other men ; 

His service liberty indeed, 

He built no church, he framed no creed ; 

But while the saintly Pharisee 

Made broader his phylactery, 

As from the synagogue was seen 

The dusty-sandalled Nazarene 

Through ripening cornfields lead the way 

Upon the awful Sabbath day, 

His sermons were t Un healthful talk 

That shorter made u.- mountain-walk, 

His wayside texts were flowers and birds, 

W r here mingled with His gracious words 

The rustle of the tamarisk-tree 

And ripple-wash of Galilee." 

"Thy words are well, friend," I said ; 

" Unmeasured and unlimited, 

With noiseless slide of stone to stone, 

The mystic Church of God has grown. 

Invisible and silent stands 

The temple never made with hands, 

Unheard the voices still and small 

< )l its unseen confessional. 



242 



THE MEETING. 



He needs no special place of prayer 
Whose hearing ear is everywhere ; 
IT bi ings n.it back the childish days 
Thai ringed the earth with stones of praise. 

Roofed kaiuak's hall of gods, ami laid 
Th. plinths i'l' Philae'a colonnade. 
Still less II.' owns tin' selfish good 
And sicklj growth of solitude, — 
The worthless grace that, nut. of sight, 
Flowers in the desert anchorite ; 
Dissevered from the suffering whole, 
Love hath un power t>> save a bouL 
Nut nut (if Self, the origin 
Ami native air and soil of sin, 
The living waters spring and How, 
The trees with Leaves of healing grow. 
" Dream not, () friend, becanse I sick 
This quiet shelter twice a week, 
I better deem its pine-laid floor 
Than breezy hill or sea sung -lime ; 
But nature is not solitude : 

She crowds us with her thronging w 1 ; 

Her many hands reach out to us, 
Her many tongues an- garrulous ; 
Perpetual riddles of surprise 
She offers to our ears and eyes; 

She will ll'il leave our senses still, 
But drags them captive at her will : 
Anil, making earth too great for heaven, 
She hides the Giver in the given. 

" And so, I find it well to come 

For deeper rest to this still room, 

For lure the habit of the soul 

Feels less the outer world's control ; 

The st length ol mutual purpose pleads 

Muie earnestly our common needs ; 

And from the silence multiplied 

By these r till forms on either side, 

The world that time and sens'- have known 

Falls off and leaves us <;<>d alone. 

"Yet rarely through the charmed repose 
Unmixed the stream of motive Hows, 
A flavor ol' its many springs, 
The tints of earth and sky it brings ; 
In the still waters needs must he 
Some shade of human s\ nipathy ; 
And here, in its accustomed place, 
I look on memory's dearest face; 
The blind by-sister guesseth not 

What shadow haunts that vacant spot ; 
No eyes save mine alone can see 
The love wherewith it welcomes me ! 
And still, with those alone my kin. 
In doubt and weakness, want and sin, 
I bow my head, my heart I hare 
As when that face was living there, 
And strive (too oft, alas ! m vain !) 
The peace of simple trust to gain, 
Fold fancy's restless wings, and lay 
The idols of my heart away. 

'■ Welcome the silence all unbroken, 

Nor less the wolds of lit loss spoken, — 
Such golden words as hers for whom 
Our autumn flowers have just made room ; . 
Whose hopeful utterance through and through 

The freshness of the ruing blew ; 

Who Loved not less the earth that light 
fell on it from the heavens in si'jht, 
lint saw in all fair forms more fair 
The Eternal beauty mirrored there. 
Whose eight\- years hut added grace 
And saint Her mi tilling to her face. 
Tin look of one who bore away 
Glad i idings from the hills of daj , 
While all our hearts went forth to meet 

The coming of her beautiful feet! 



Or haply hers, whose pilgrim tread 

Is in the path where .Jesus led ; 

Who dreams her childhood's sabbath dream 

l'.\ Jordan's willow-shaded stream. 

And, of the hymns of hope and faith, 
Sung by tin- monks ol' Nazarel h, 

Hears pious echoes, in tin call 

To prayer, from Moslem minarets fall, 
Repeating where his works were wro 

The lesson that her Master taught, 
< )l whom ;m elder Sibyl gave, 
The prophecies of < Jumae's cave ! 

"I ask no organ's soulless breath 

To drone the themes of life and death, 

\o altar candle-lit by day, 

X nate wordsman's rhetoric-play, 

No cool philosophy to teach 

Its bland audacitii s of speech 

To double tasked idolaters 

Themselves their gods and worshippers, 

No pulpit hammered by the list 

Of loud-asserting dogmatist, 

Who borrows from the hand of love 

The smoking thunderbolts of Jove. 

1 know how well the fathers taught, 

What work the later schoolmen wrought; 

I reverence old time faith and men, 

l!ut ( lod is near us now as then ; 

His force of love is still unspent, 

I lis hate of sin as imminent ; 

And stiil the measure of our rte. ds 

Outgrows the cramping bounds of creeds. 

The manna gathered yesterday 

Already savors of decaj ; 

Doubts to the world's child heart unknown 

Question us now from star and stone; 

Too little or too much we know, 

And sight is swill and faith is slow ; 

Tile power is lost to self-deceive 

With shallow forms of make believe. 

We walk at high noon, and the lulls 

( 'all to a thousand oracles. 

Hut the sound dea lens, and the light 

Is stronger than our dazzled sight; 

The letters of the sacred Hook 

Glimmer and swim beneath our look; 
Still struggles in the Age's breast 
With deepening agonj of qnesi 
The old entreaty : ' Art thou He. 
Or look we for the Christ to be? ' 

"Cod should lie mo-t when man is least: 
So, where is neither church nor priest. 
And never rag of form or creed 
To clothe the nakedness of need, — 
Where farmer -folk in silence meet, — 
I turn my bell-unsummoned feet; 

1 lay the critic's glass aside, 

I tread upon my lettered pride, 

And, lowest-seated, testify 

To the oneness of humanity ; 

( 'onl'i ss the universal want, 

And share whatever Heaven maj grant. 

He findeth not who seeks his own. 

The soul is lost that's saved alone. 

Not on one favored forehead fell 

Of old the fire tongued miracle, 

But flamed o'er all the thronging host 

The baptism of the holy < rhosi ; 

I leait answers heart : in one desire 

The blending lines of prayer aspire ; 

1 Where, in my name, meet two or three, 

Our Lord hath said, ' I tin re will he ! ' 

"So sometimes comes to soul and sense 

The feeling which is evidence 
That \ er\ near about us lies 
The realm of spiritual mysteries. 



THE ANSWER.— G. L. S. 24? 


The sphere of the supernal powers 


" Say not, thy fond, vain heart within, 


Impinges on tins world oi ours. 


Tin- Father's arm shall still lie wide, 


The low and dark horizon lifts, 


When from these pleasant, ways id' sin 


To light the scenic terror shifts ; 


Thou tum'st at eventide. 


The breal h of a diviner air 




Blows down the answer of a prayi i : 


" 'Cast thyself down,' the tempter saith, 


That all our sorrow, pain, and doubt 


' And angi Is shall thy feel upbear.' 


A great compassion clasps about, 


lie bids thee make a lie of faith, 


And law and goodness, love and fi 


And blasphemy of prayer. 


Aif wedded fast beyond divorce. 




Then duty leaves to love its task, 


" Though God be good and free be Heaven, 


The beggar Self forgets to ask ; 


No force divine ean love compel ; 


With smile of trust and folded hands, 


And, though the song of sins forgiven 


The passive soul in waiting stands 


May sound through lowest hell, 


To feel, as flowers the sun and dew, 




The One true Life its own renew. 


"The sweet persuasion of His voice 




Respeets thy sanctity of will. 


"So, to the calmly gathered thought 


He giveth d=.y : thou hast thy choice 


The innermost id' truth is taught, 


To walk in darkness still ; 


The ni\ stery dimly understood, 




That love of God is love of good. 


"As one who, turning from the light, 


And, chiefly, its divinest trace 


Watches his own gray shadow fall, 


In Him of Nazareth's holy face ; 


Doubting, upon his path of night, 


That to be saved is only this, — 


If there be day at all ! 


Salvation from our selfishness, 




From more than elemental lire, 


" No word of doom may shut thee out, 


The soul's unsanctified desire. 


No wind of wrath may downward whirl, 


From sin itself, and not the pain 


No swords of fire keep watch about 


That warns us of its chafing chain; 


The open gates of pearl ; 


That worship's deeper meaning lies 




In mercy, ami not sacrifice, 


" A tenderer light than moon or sun, 


Not proud humilities of sense 


Than song of earth a sweeter hymn, 


And posturing of penil ence, 


May shine and sound forever on, 


But love's unforced obedience; 


And thou lie deaf and dim. 


That Book and Church and Day are given 




For man, not God, — for earth, not heaven, — ■ 


"Forever round the Mercy-seat 


The blessed means to holiest ends. 


The guiding lights of Love shall burn; 


Nol masters, but benignant friends ; 


But what if, habit-bound, thy leer 


That th<' dear < !hrist dwells not afar, 


Shall lack the will to turn V 


The king of some remoter star, 




Listening, at times, with flattered ear 


" What if thine eye refuse to see, 


To homage wrung from selfish fear, 


Thine ear of Heaven's free welcome fail, 


But here, amidst the poor and Mind, 


And thou a willing captive lie. 


The bound and suffering of our kind, 


Thyself thy own dark jail . 


In works we do, in prayers we pray, 




Life of our life, he lives to-day." 


" doom beyond the saddest guess, 




As the long years of God unroll 




To make thy dreary selfishness 






The prison of a soul ! 


THE ANSWER. 






" To doubt the love that fain would break 


SPARE rue, dread angel of reproof, 


The fetters from thy self-bound limb; 


And let tin.' sunshine weave to-day 


And dream that God can thee forsake 


Its gold-threads in the warp and woof 


As thou forsakest him ! " 


Of life so pom- and gray. 




Spare me awhile ; the flesh is weak. 

These lingering feet, that fain would stray 






Among the flowers, shall some day sei k 




The strait and narrow way. 


G. L. S. 


Take off thy ever-watchful eye, 


He has done the work of a true man, — 


The awe of thy rebuking frown ; 


Crown him, honor him, love him. 


The dullest slave at times must sigh 


Weep over him, tears of woman, 


To fling Ins burdens down ; 


Stoop manliest brows above him ! 


To drop his galley's straining oar, 


O dusky mothers and daughters, 


And press, in summer warmth and calm, 


Vigils of mourning keep for him ! 


The lap of some enchanted shore 


Up in the mountains, and down by the waters 


. Of blossom and id' balm. 


Lift up your voices and weep for him ! 


Grudge not my life its hour of bloom, 


For the warmest of hearts is frozen, 


My heart its taste of long desire; 


The freest of hands is still ; 


This day lie mine : lie those to come 


And the gap in our picked and chosen 


As duty shall require. 


The long years may not fill. 


The deep voice answered to my own, 


No duty could overtask him, 


Smiting my selfish prayers away ; 


No need his will outrun ; 


"To-morrow is with God alone, 


Or ever our lips could ask him, 


And man hath hut to da\ . 


His hands the work had done. 



244 



FREEDOM IN BRAZIL.— DIVINE COMPASSION. 



He forgot his own sou) for others, 
I [imsell to his neighbor Lending ; 

He found the Lord in his Buffering brothers, 
And not in the clouds descending. 

So tlu' bed was sweel to die on. 

Whence he saw the doors wide swung 
Against whose bolted iron 

The strength of his life was flung. 

And he saw ere his eye was darkened 
The sheaves of the harvest bringing, 

And knew while his ear yet hearkened 
The voice of the reapers singing. 

Ah, well ! — The world is discreet ; 

There are plenty to pause and wait ; 
But here was a man who set his feet 

Sometimes in advance of fate, — 

Plucked off the old hark when the inner 

Was slow to renew it, 
And put to the Lord's work the sinner 

When saints failed to do it. 

Never rode to the wrong's redressing 

A woi thier paladin. 
Shall he not hear the blessing, 

' ' Good and faithful, enter in ! " 



And thou, O Earth, with smiles thy face make 
sweet, 

Ami lit t h\ wail he stilled, 
To hear the JMusc of prophecy repeat 

Her promise half fulfilled. 
The Voice that spake at Nazareth speaks still, 

No sound thereof hath died ; 
Alike thy hope and Heaven's eternal will 

Shall yet be satisfied. 
The years are slow, the vision tarrieth long, 

And far the end may be; 
But, one l>\ one, the fiends of ancient wrong 

Go out and leave thee free. 



FREEDOM IN BRAZIL. 

With clearer light, Cross of the South, shine 
forth 

In blue Brazilian skies ; 
And thou, O river, cleaving half the earth 

From sunset to sunrise, 
From the great mountains to the Atlantic waves 

Thy joy's long anthem pour. 
Yet a few days (God make them less ! ) and 
slaves 

Shall shame thy pride no more. 
No fettered feet thy shaded margins press ; 

But all men shall walk free 
Where thou, the high-priest of the wilderness, 

Hast wedded sea to sea. 

And thou, great-hearted ruler, through whose 
mouth 

The word of God is said, 
Once more, "Let there be light!" — Son of the 
South, 

Lift up thy honored head, 
Wear unashamed a crown by thy desert 

More than by birth thy own, 
Careless of watch and ward; thou art begirt 

By grateful hearts alone. 
The moated wall and battle-ship may fail, 

But safe shall justice prove; 
Stronger than greaves of brass or iron mail 

The panoply of love. 

Crowned doubly by man's blessing and God's 
grace, 

Thy future is secure ; 
Who frees a people makes his statue's place 

In Time's Valhalla sure. 
Lo! from his Neva's banks the Scythian Czar 

Stretches to thee his hand, 
Who, with the pencil of the Northern star, 

Wrote freedom on his land. 
And he whose grave is holy by our calm 

And prairie 1 Sangamon, 
Prom his gaunt hand shall drop the martyr's palm 

To greet thee with " Well done! " 



DIVINE COMPASSION. 

Long since, a dream of heaven I had, 

And still the vision haunts me oft ; 
I see the saints in white robes clad, 

The martyrs with their palms aloft; 
But hearing still, in middle song, 

The ceaseless dissonance of wrong ; 
And shrinking, with hid faces, from the strain 

Of sad, beseeching eyes, full of remorse and 
pain. 

The glad song falters to a wail, 

The harping sinks to low lament ; 
Before the still uplifted veil 

I see the crowned foreheads bent, 
Making more sweet the heavenly air, 

With breathings of unselfish prayer; 
And a Voice saith : " O Pity which is pain, 

O Love that weeps, fill up my sufferings which 
remain ! 

" Shall souls redeemed by me refuse 

To share my sorrow in their turn ? 
Or, sin-forgiven, my gift abuse 

Of peace with selfish unconcern ? 
Has saintly ease no pitying care ? 

Has faith no work, and love no prayer ? 
While sin remains, and souls in darkness dwell, 

Can heaven itself be heaven, and look unmoved 
on hell ? " 

Then through the Gates of Pain, I dream, 

■ A wind of heaven blows coolly in ; 
Fainter the awful discords seem, 

The smoke of torment grows more thin, 
Tears quench the burning soil, and thence 
Spring sweet, pale flowers of penitence ; 
And through the dreary realm of man's despair, 
Star-crowned an angel walks, and lo! God's 
hope is there ! 

Is it a dream ? Is heaven so high 

That pity cannot breathe its air ? 
Its happy ej'es forever dry, 

Its holy lips without a prayer ! 
My God ! my God ! if thither led 

By thy free grace unmerited, 
No crown nor palm be mine, but let me keep 

A heart that still can feel, and eyes that still 
can weep. 



LINES ON A FLY-LEAF. 

1 need not ask thee, for my sake, 
To nail a hook which well may make 
Its way by native force of wit 
Without my manual sign to it. 
Its ] in plant writer needs from me 
No gravely masculine guaranty. 



LINES ON A FLY-LEAF.— HYMN. 



245 



And well might laugh her merriest laugh 

At broken spears in her behalf ; 

Yet, spite of all the critics tell, 

I frankly own I like her well. 

It may be that she wields a, pen 

Too sharply nibbed for thin-skinned men, 

That her keen arrows search and try 

Tin' armor joints of dignity, 

An I, though alone for error meant, 

Sing through the air irreverent. 

I blame her not, the young athlete 

Who plants her woman's fcinj feet, 

Aiul dares the chanci s of debate 

Where bearded men might hesitate, 

Who, deeply earnest, seeing well 

The ludicrous and laughable, 

Mingling in eloquent excess 

Ibr miner ami her tend' mess, 

Ami, chiding with a hall' caress, 

Strives, less for her own sex than ours, 

With principalities and powers, 

Ami points us upward to the clear 

.Sunned heights of her new atmosphere. 

Heaven mend her faults ! — I will not pause 

To weigh and doubt and peek at Haws, 

Or waste my pity when some fool 

Provokes her measureless ridicule. 

Strong-minded is she '? Better so 

Than dulness set for sale or show, 

A household folly, capped and belled 

In fashion's dance of puppets held, 

Or poor pretence of womanhoo ', 

Whose formal, flavorless platitude 

Is warranted from all offence 

Of robust meaning's violence. 

Give me the wine of thought whose bead 

Sparkles along the page I read. 

Electric words in which I find 

The tonic of the northwest wind, — 

The wisdom which itself allies 

To sweet and pure humanities, 

Where scorn of meanness, hate of wrong, 

Are underlaid by love as strong; 

The genial play of mirth that lights 

Grave themes of thought, as, when on nights 

Of summer-time, the harmless blaze 

Of thunderless heat-lightning plays, 

And tree and hill-top resting dim 

And doubtful on the sky's vague rim. 

Touched by that soft and lambent gleam, 

Start sharply outlined from their dream. 

Talk not to me of woman's sphere, 
Nor point with Scripture texts a sneer, 
Nor wrong the manliest saint of all 
By doubt, if he were here, that Paul 
Would own the heroines who have lent 
Grace to truth's stern arbitrament, 
Foregone the praise to woman sweet, 
And cast their crowns at Duty's feet ; 



Like her, who by her strong Appeal 

Made Fashion weep and Mammon feel, 

Who, earliest summoned to withstand 

The color-madness of the land, 

Counted her life-long losses gain, 

And made her own her sisters' pain; 

Or her who, in her greenwood shade, 

Heard the sharp call that Freedom made, 

And, answering, struck from Sappho's lyre 

Of love the Tyrtaean carmen's fire : 

Or that young girl, — Domremy's maid 

Revived a nobler cause to aid, — 

Shaking from warning finger-tips 

The doom of her apocalypse ; 

Or her, who world-wide entrance gave 

To the log-cabin of the slave, 

Made all his want and sorrow- known, 

And all earth's languages his own. 



HYMN 

FOR THE HOUSE OF WORSHIP AT GEORGETOWN. 
ERECTED IN MEMORY OF A MOTHER. 

Thou dwellest not, O Lord of all ! 

In temples which thy children raise ; 
Our work to thine is mean and small, 

And brief to thy eternal days. 

Forgive the weakness and the pride, 
If marred thereby our gift may be, 

For love, at least, has sanctified 
The altar that we rear to thee. 

The heart and not the hand has wrought 
From sunken base to tower above 

The image of a tender thought, 
The memory of a deathless love ! 

And though should never sound of speech 

Or organ echo from its wall, 
Its stones would pious lessons teach, 

Its shades in benedictions fall. 

Here should the dove of peace be found, 
And blessings and not curses given ; 

Nor strife profane, nor hatred wound, 
The mingled loves of earth and heaven. 

Thou, who didst soothe with dying breath 
The dear one watching by thy cross, 

Forgetful of the pains of death 
In sorrow for her mighty loss, 

In memory of that tender claim, 
O Mother-born, the offering take, 

And make it worthy of thy name, 
And bless it for a mother's sake ! 



246 



TO FREDERICK A. P. BARNARD.— MIRIAM. 



MIRIAM, 
AND OTHER POEMS. 



TO FREDERICK A. P. BARNARD. 

The years are many since, in youth and hope, 
Under the Charter Oak, our horoscope 
We drew thick-studded with all favoring stars. 
Now, with gray beards, and faces seamed with 

scars 
From life's hard battle, meeting once again, 
We smile, half sadly, over dreams so vain; 
Knowing, at last, that it is not in man 
Who walketh to direct, his steps, or plan 
His permanent house of life. Alike we loved 
The muses' haunts, and all our fancies moved 
To measures of old song. How since that day 
Our feet have parted from tie- path that lay 
So fair before us ! Rich, from lifelong search 
()l truth, within thy Academic porch 
Thou sittest now, lord of a realm of fact, 
Thy s rvitors the sciences exact; 
Still listening with thy hand on Nature's keys, 
To hear the Salman's sph r;i! harmonies 
And rhythm of law. I called from dream and song, 
Thank God! so earlj bo a strife so long, 
That, ere it closed, the black, abundant hair 
Of boyhood rested silver-sown and spare 
On manhood's temples, now at sunset-chime 
Tread with fond feet the path of morning time. 
And if perchance too hit' I linger where 
The flowers have ceased to blow, and trees are 

bare, 
Thou, wiser in thy choice, wilt scarcely blame 
The friend who shields his folly with thy name. 
Amesbuky, 10th rno., 1870. 



MIRIAM. 

ONE Sabbath day my friend and I 

After the meeting, quietly 

Passed from the crowded village fun-. 

White with dry dust fc- lack of rains, 

And climbed the neighboring slope, with feet 

Slackened and neavy from tin- heat, 

Although the day was wellnigh done, 

And the low angle of the sun 

Along the nuked hillside e;i I 

Our shadows as of giants vast. 

We reached, at length, the topmost swell, 

Whence, either way, the green turf fell 

In terraces of nat inv dow D 

To Emit hung orchards, and the town 

With white, pretenceless house,, tall 

Church-st :eples, and, o'ershadowing all, 

Huge mills whose windows had the look 

< If eager eyes that ill could brook 

The Sabbath rest. We traced the track 

Of the sea-seeking river back 

Glistening for miles above its mouth, 

Through the long valley to the south, 

And, looking eastward, cool to view, 

St retched the illimitable blue 

Of ocean, from its curved coast line; 

Solid. led .-md still, the warm sunshine 

Filled with pale gold dust all t he reach 
Of slumberous woods from hill bo beach, — 



Slanted on walls of thronged retreats 
From city toil and dusty si nits, 
( )n grassy bluffj and dune of sand, 
And rocky islands miles from land ; 
Touched the far glancing sails, and showed 

White lines of foam where long waves flowed 

Dumb in tin: distance. In the north, 
Dim through their misty hair, looked forth 
The space dwarfed mountains to the sea, 
From m\ sterj to mj stery ! 

So, sitting on that, green hill-slope, 
We talked of human life, its hope 
And fear, and unsolved doubts, and what. 
It might, have been, and yet was not. 
And, when at last, the evening air 
Grew sweeter for the bells of prayer 
Ringing in steeples far below, 
We watched the people churchward go, 
Bach tii his place, as if thereon 
Tl e I rue shekinah only shone; 
And my friend queried how it came 
'To pass that, they who owned the same 
Groat Master still could not agree 
To worship Him in company. 
Then, broadi ning in his thought, he ran 
Over the w hole \ ast, held of man, — 
The varying forms of faith and creed 
That somehow served the holders' need ; 
In which, unquestioned, undenied, 
Uncounted millions lived and died ; 
The bibles of the ancient folk, 
Through which the heart, of nations spoke ; 
Tin old moralities which lent 
To home it-, sweetness and content, 
Ami rendered possible to bear 
The life of peoples everywhere : 
And asked if we, who boast of light, 
Claim not a too exclusive right 
To troths which must for all be meant, 
Like rain and sunshine freely sent. 
In bondage to the letter s1 .II, 
We give it, power to cramp and kill, — 
To tax God's fulness with a scheme 
Narrower than Peter's house-top dream, 
His wisdom and his love with plans 
Poor and inadequate as man's. 
It must be that He witnesses 
Somehow to all men that He is : 
That something of His saving grace 
Reaches the lowest of the race, 
Who, through strange creed and rite, may draw 
The hints of a diviner law. 
We walk in clearer light; —but then, 
Is He not God? air tlir) not men V 
Are His responsibilities 
For us alone and not for these ? 

And I made answer: "Truth is one; 

And, in all lands beneath the sun, 
Wh .so hath eyes to see may see 

The tokens of its unity. 

No scroll of creed its fulness wraps, 

We trace it not by school l>o\ maps, 

Free as the sun and air it is 

( )f latitudes and boundaries. 

In Vedic verse, in dull Koran, 

Are messages of good to man ; 



MIRIAM. 



247 



The angels to our Aryan Bires 
Talked l>\ the earliest household fires; 
The prophets of i lie el li c day, 
The slant-eyed sages oi Cal hay, 
Read not the riddle all amiss 
Of higher life evolved from this. 

■• KTor doth it lessen whal He taught, 
Or make the gospel Jesus brought 
Less pri cious, that His lips 1 1 

i .1 'i ill' old ; 
Denying not the proven seers, 
The tested wis lom of the years; 
Confirming with his own im] i 

immon law of righteousness. 
We search the world for truth ; wc cull 

iod, the pure, the bi a ni iful, 
Prom graven stone and written scrol 
From all old flower -fields of i he soul ; 
Ami, wearj - kei s of the best, 
We come ba sk laden from our quest, 
To tinil that all the sagi 
[s In the Book our mothers read, 
Ainl all onr treasure of old thought 
harmonious fulne 

<t hers in one shea r' comph t ■ 

attered blades of God's sown wheat, 
hat maketh goo 1 
I i i all -embracing Fatherhood. 

" Wherever throi 3 rise 

The . 

Where love its arms has opened wide, 
< )r man for man has calmly died, 
I same white wings outspread 

That hovered o'er the Master's head ! 
Up from undated time they come, 
The martyr souls of heathendom, 
And to His cross and passion briny 
Their fellowship of sufferin . 
1 i race His presence in the blind 
Pathetic gropings of my kind, — 
In prayers from sin. Mid sorrow wrung, 
In cradle-hymns of life they sung, 
Eai h, in its measure, but a part 
(i| bhe unm nred Over-Heart ; 
And with a stronger faith confess 
The great t t lat it owns the less. 
■ i,use it is for thankfulness 
That the world-blessing of His life 
W'n h the long past is not at strife ; 
That the great marvel of His death 
To the one order witnesseth, 
No doubt of changeless goodness wakes, 
No link of cause and sequence breaks, 
But, one with nature, rooted is 
In the eternal verities ; 
Whereby, while differing in degree 
As finite from infinity, 
The pain and loss for others borne, 
Love's crown of suffering meekly worn, 
The life man giveth For his friend 
I Sea ime \ Lea nous in the end ; 
Their healing place in nature take. 
And make life sweeter for their sake. 

"So welcome I from every source 
T ■ tokens of that primal Force, 

Older than heaven itself, yet new 
As the young heart it reaches to, 
Beneath whose steady impulse rolls 
The tidal wave of human souls ; 
Guide, comforter, and inward word, 
The eternal spirit of the Lord ! 
Nor fear I aught that science brings 
From searching through material things; 
('(intent to let its glasses prove, 
Not by the letter's oldness move, 
The myriad worlds on worlds that course 
The spaces of the universe; 



Since everywhere the Spirit walks 
The garden of the heart, and talks - 
With man, as under Eden's trees, 
In all his varied languages. 
Why mourn above some hopeless flaw 
In the stone tables of the law, 
When script me every day afresh 
Is traced on tablets of the flesh ? 
By inwanl sense, by outward signs, 
God's presence still the heart divines; 
Through deepest joy of Him we fain. 
In sorest grief to Him we turn, 
And reason stoops its pride to share 
The child-like instinci of a prayer." 

And then, as is my wont, I told 

A story of the days of old, 

Not found in printed books, -in sooth, 

A fancy, with slight hint of truth, 

Showing how differing faiths agn 

In one sweet law of charity. 

Meanwhile the sky had golden grown, 

Our faces in its glory shone; 

But shadows down the valley swept, 

And gray below the ocean slept. 

As time and space I wandered o'er 

To tread the Mogul's marble floor, 

And see a fairer sunset fall 

On Jumna's wave and Agra's wall. 



The good Shah Akbar (peace be his alway !) 
( lame forth from the Divan at close of day 
Bowed with the burden of his many cares, 
Worn with the hearing of unnumbered prayers, — ■ 
Wild cries for justice, the importunate 
Appeals of greed and jealousy and hate, 
And all the strife of sect and creed and rite, 
Santon and Gouroo waging holy fight : 
For the wise monarch, claiming not to be 
Allah's avenger, left his people free, 
With a faint hope, his Book scarce justified, 
That all the paths of faith, though severed wide, 
O'er which the feet of prayerful reverence passed, 
Met at the gate of Paradise at last. 

He sought an alcove of his cool hareem, 
Where, far beneath, he heard the Jumna's stream 
Lapse soft and low along his palace wall, 
And all about the cool sound of the fall 
Of fountains, and of water circling free 
Through marble ducts along the balcony ; 
The voice of women in the distance sweet, 
And, sweeter still, of one who, at his feet, 
Soothed his tired ear with songs of a far land 
Where Tagns shatters on the "salt sea-sand 
The mirror of its cork-grown hills of drouth 
And vales of vine, at Lisbon's harbor-mouth. 

The date-palms rustled not ; the peepul laid 
Its topmost boughs against the balustrade, 
Motionless as the mimic leaves and vines 
That, light and graceful as the shawl-designs 
Of Delhi or Umntsir, twined in stone; 
And the tired monarch, who aside had thrown 
The day's hard burden, sat from care apart, 
And let the quiet steal into his heart 
From the still hour. Below him Agra slept, 
By the long light of sunset overswept : 
The river flowing through a level land, 
By mango-groves and banks of yellow sand, 
Skirted with lime and orange, gay kiosks, 
Fountains at play, tall minarets of mosques, 
Fair pleasure-gardens, with their flowering trees 
Relieved against the mournful cypresses; 
And, air-poised lightly as the blown sea-foam, 
The marble wonder of some holy dome 
Hung a white moonrise over the still wood, 
Glassing its beauty in a stiller flood. 



2 IK 



MIRIAM. 



Silent the monarch gazed, until the night 
Swift falling luil the citj from his sight, 
Then to the woman al his feet be said : 
''Tell me, <> Miriam, something thou hast read 
In childhood of the Master oi thy faith, 
Whom 1 slam also owns. < >ur Prophet saith : 
1 He was a true apostle, \ ea. a \\ ord 
Ami Spirit senl before me from the Lord.' 
Thus the Book w and well i kuow 

By what thou art, < > d so. 

As i he Lute maker's hand betrays, 

The sweet d :s her Master's praise." 

Then .Miriam, glad of heart, (for in some sort 
She cherished in the Moslem's liberal court 
The sweet traditions of a Christian child ; 
And, through her life of sense, the undented 
And chaste ideal of i he sinless ( >ne 
Gazed on her with an eye she might not shun, — 
The sad, reproachful look of pity, born 
Of love thai hath no part in wrath or scorn,) 
B "Mil, with low voice and moist, eyes, to tell 
Of the all-loving Christ, and what befell 
When the fierce zealots, thirsting for her bloo 1, 
Dragg id to his feet a shame of womanhood. 
How, when his searching answer pierc d within 
Bach heart, and touched the secret of its sin, 
And her accusers tied his face before, 
He bade the poor one go and sin no more, 
And Akbar said, after a moment's thought, 
" Wise is the lesson by thy prophet taught; 
Woe unto him who judges and forgi ts 
What hidden evil his own heart besets ! 

i hing of this large charity I find 
In all the sects that sever human kind ; 
! woul I to Allah that their lives agreed 
More nearly with the lesson of their creed ! 

, ellow Lamas who at Meerut pray 
Ih wind and wat r power, and love to say : 
1 He who forgiveth not shall, unforgiven, 
Pail of the rest of Buddha,' and w ho even 
Spare the black gnatthat stings them, vex myears 
With the poor hates and jealousies and fears 
Nursed in their human hives. That lean, fierce 

priest 
Of thj own people, (be his heart increased 
By Allah's love !) his black robes smelling yet 
Of Goa's roasted Jews, have I not met 
Meek face I, barefooted, crying in the street 
The saying of his prophet true and sweet, — 
1 He who is merciful shall mercy meet ! ' " 

But, next day, so it chanced, as night began 
To fall, a murmur through the hareem ran 
That one, recalling in her dusky fa 
The full-lipped, mild-eyed beauty of a rape 
Known as the blameless Ethiops of I rreek song, 
Plotting to do h( r royal master wrong, 
Watching, reproachful of the lingering light, 
The evening Shadows deepen for her flight, 
Love-guided, to her home in a far land, 
Now waited death at the great Shah's command. 

Shapely as that dark princess for whoRe smile 
A world was bartered, daughter of the Nile 
Herself, and veiling in In v !. yes 

The passion and the languor of her skies. 
The Abyssinian knelt low at the feel 
( )f her stem lord : " king, if it be mi 
And for thy honor's sake," she said, " that I, 

Who am the humblest of thy slaves, should die, 
1 will not tax thy mercy to fo 
Easier it is to die than to outlive 

lie, — him whose wrong of thee 
Was but the outcome of his love for me, 
Cherished from childhood, when, beneath the 
shade 

Of templed Aximi, side by side we played. 
Stolen from his arms, my lover followed me 

Through weary seasons over land and sea ; 



And two days since, sitting disconsolate 

Within the shadow of the hareem gate, 

Suddenly, as it' dropping from the sky, 

I >ov\ ii from the lattice of the balcony 

fell the sweet song by Tigre's cow-herds sung 

In the old music ot his nat i\ e tongue. 

He knew my voice, for love is quick of ear, 

Answering in song. 

This night he waited near 
To fly with me. The fault was mine alone : 
He knew thee not, he did but seek his own ; 
Who, in the very shadow of thy throne, 
Sharing thy bounty, knowing all thou art, 
I Inn test and best of men, and in her heart 

Grateful to tears for favor undeserved, 

Turned ever homeward, nor one moment swerved 
Prom her young love. He looked into my ej es, 
He heard my voice, and could not otherwise 
Than he hath done ; yet, save one wild embrace 
When first we stood together face to lace, 
And all that fate had done since last we met 
Seemed but a dream that left U6 children yet, 
He hath not wronged thee nor thy royal bed; 
Spare him, O king ! and slay me in his stead ! " 

But over Akbar's blows the frown hung black, 
And, turning to the eunuch at his back, 
"Take them," he said, "and let the Jumna's 

waves 
Hide both my shame and these accursed slaves ! " 
His loathlj length the unsexed bondman bowed : 
" On my head be it ! " 

Straightway from a cloud 
Of dainty shawls and veils of woven mist 
The Christian Miriam rose, and, stooping, kissed 
The monarch's hand. Loose down her shoulders 

bare 
Swept all the rippled darkness of her hair. 
Veiling the bosom that, with high, quick swell 
Of fear and pity, through it rose and fell. 

'• Alas ! " she cried, " hast thou forgotten quite 
The words of Him we spake oi yesternight? 
Or thy own prophet's, — ' 'Whoso doth endure 
And pardon, of eternal life is sure' ? 
() great and good ! be thy revenge alone 
Pelt in thy mercy to the erring shown; 
Let thwarted love and youth their pardon plead. 
Who sinned but in intent, and not in deed I " 

One moment the strong frame of Akbar shook 
With the gnat storm of passion. Then his look 
Softened to her uplifted face, that still 
Pleaded more strongly than all words, until 
Its pride and anger seemed like overblown, 
Spent clouds of thunder left to t( 11 alone 
Of strife and overcoming. With bowed head, 
And smiting on his bosom : "God," he said, 
"Alone is great, and let His holy name 
Be honored, even to His servant's shame ! 
Well spake thy prophet, Miriam, — he alone 
Who hath not sinned is meet to cast a stone 
At such as these, who here their doom await, 
Held like myself in the strong grasp of fate. 
They sinned' through love, as I through love for- 
give ; 
Take them beyond my realm, but let them live ! " 

And, like a chorus to the words of grace, 
The ancient fakir, sitting in his place, 
Motionless as an idol and as grim, 
In the pavilion Akbar built for him 

fuller the court yard trees, (for he was wise, 
Knew Menu's laws, and through his close shut 

e\ es 

Saw tilings far off, and as an open bonk 
Into the thoughts of other men could look,) 
Began, half chant, half howling, in rehearse 
The fragment of a holy Vedic verse ; 



MIRIAM. 



249 




?ntly, the beacon's star." 



And thus it ran : " He who all things forgives 
Conquers himself and all things else, and lives 
Above the reach of wrong or hate or fear, 
Cairn as the gods, to whom he is most dear. " 

Two leagues from Agra still the traveller sees 
The tomb of Akbar through its cypress-trees ; 
And, near at hand, the marble walls that hide 
The Christian Begum sleeping at his side. 
And o'er her vault of burial (who shall tell 
If it be chance alone or miracle ?) 
The Mission press with tireless hand unrolls 
The words of Jesus on its lettered scrolls, — 
Tells, in all tongues, the tale of mercy o'er 
And bids the guilty, "Go and sin no more ! " 



It now was dew-fall ; very still 
The night lay on the lonely hill, 
Down which our homeward steps we bent, 
And, silent, through great silence went, 
Save that the tireless crickets played 
Their long, monotonous serenade. 



A young moon, at its narrowest, 

Curved iharp against the darkening west ; 

And, momently, the beacon'c star, 

Slow wheeling o'er its rock afar, 

From out the level darkness shot 

One instant and again was not. 

And then my friend spake quietly 

The thought of both : " Yon crescent see ! 

Like Islam's symbol moon it gives 

Hints of the light whereby it lives : 

Somewhat of goodness, something true 

From sun and spirit shining through 

All faiths, all worlds, as through the dark 

Of ocean shines the lighthouse spark, 

Attests the presence everywhere 

Of love and providential care. 

The faith the old Norse heart confessed 

In one dear name, — the hopefulest 

And tenderest heard from mortal lips 

In pangs of birth or death, from ships 

Ice-bitten in the winter sea, 

Or lisped beside a mother's knee, — 

The wiser world hath not outgrown, 

And the All-Father is our own !" 



350 



NOREMBEGA. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



NOREMBEGA. 

[Norembega, or Norimbeguc, is the name given bj 
rench fishermen and explorers toa fabulous coun 

lape Breton, nisi discovered bj Verrazzani 

i, wa npposed i" lias i- a magnificent eitj o1 
the same name on a great river, probablj the Pel 
Xhe site of this barbaric citj i- laid down on a map pub- 
lished al Antwerp, in 1570. In 160 I I lhamplain sailed in 
,,i. : i of the Northern Eldorado, twenty-two leagues up 
the Penob col from the fsle Haute. He supposed the 
river to be thai of Norembega, but wisely came to the 
conclusion thai those travellers who told of the great city 
had never seen it. He saw no evidences of anything like 
civilization, but mentions the finding of a cross, very old 
and m issy, in the woods.] 

The winding way the serpent takes 

The mysl ic w ater took, 
Prom where, to count its beaded lakes, 

The finest sped its brook. 

A narrow space 'twixt shore and shore, 

For sun or stars to fall, 
While evermore, behind, before, 

< !lo ied in the Eorest wall. 

The dim wood biding underneath 

Wan flowers without a name ; 
Life tangled with decay and death, 

League after league the same. 

Unbroken over swamp and hill 

The rounding shadow Lay, 
Save where the river cut at will 

A pa* bwaj to the day. 

Beside that track of air and light, 
Weak as a child unweaned, 

At shut of day a Christian knight 
I pon his henchman leaned. 

The embers of the sunset's fires 
Along the clouds burned down ; 

11 I see," he said, "the dollies and spires 

Of Norembega town." 

"Alack! the domes, () master mine, 

\re golden clouds on high ; 
Yon spire is but the branchless pine' 
That cuts the evening sky." 

" O hush and hark ! What sounds are these 
But chants and holy hymns ' ; " 

"Thou hear'si the breeze that stirs the trees 
Through all their leafy limbs." 

"Is it a chapel bell that fills 

The air with its low tone ? " 
" Thou hear'st the tinkle of the rills, 

The insect's vesper drone." 

" The Christ- lie praised ! — He sets for me 

A blessed cross in sight ! " 
" Now, nay, 't is but yon blasted tree 

With two gaunt arms outright ! " 

"Beit wind so sad or tree so stark, 

It matterei b not, mj kna \ e ; 
Methinks to funeral hymns I hark, 

The cross is for m\ grave ' 

" My life is sped ; I shall not see 
My home-set sails again ; 



The sweetest- eyes of Xormandie 
Shall watch for me in vain. 

" Yet onward still to ear and e\ e 

The baffling man el calls ; 
I fain would look before 1 die 

Ou Norembega's walls. 

"So, haply, it shall he thy part, 

At ( 'hi istian El et to lay 
The mystery of the desert's heart 

My dead hand (ducked away. 

" Leave me an hour of rest ; go thou 

And look from yonder heights; 
Perchance the valley even now 

Is starred with city lights." 

The henchman climbed the nearest hill, 

I le saw nor lower nor town, 
lint, through the drear woods, lone and still, 

Tile river rolling down. 

He heard i he stealthy feet of things 

Whose shapes he could not see, 
A flutter as of evil wings, 

The tall of a dead tree. 

The pines stood black against the moon, 

A sword of tire bej ond ; 
•He heard the wolf howl, and the loon 

Laugh from his reedy pond. 

lie turned him back: "O master dear, 

We are but men misled ; 
And thou hast sought a city here 

To find a- grave instead." 

" As (lod shall will! what matters where 

A true man's cross may stand, 
So Heaven he o'er it here as there 

In pleasant Norman land? 

"These woods, perchance, no scent hide 

( >f lordly tower and hall; 
Von river in its wanderings wide 

Has washed no city wall ; 

" Yet mirrored in the sullen stream 

The holy stars are given : 
Is Norembega, then, a dream 

Whose waking is in Heaven V 

"No builded wonder of these' lands 

My wearj ej es shall see ; 
A city never made with hands 

Alone awaiteth me — 

" ' Urbs Syon mystica" 1 ; I sec 

Its mansions passing fair, 
1 ( 'ondila ca lo ' ; let me he. 
Dear Lord, a dweller there !" 

Above the dying exile hung 

The vision of the hard, 
As faltered on his failing tongue 

The song of good Bernard. 

The henchman dug at dawn a grave 

Beneath the hemlocks brown, 
And to tin' desert's keeping gave 

The lord of lief and town. 



NATTHAUGHT, THE DEACON.— IX SCHOOL-DAYS. 



251 



Year's after, when bhe Sieur Champlain 

Sailed up the unknown stream, 
And .N'ir. mbega proved again 

A shadow and a dream, 

llr found tin- Norman's nameless grave 

Within the hemlock's shade, 
Ami. stretching wide it^ arms to save, 

The sign that Hod had made, 

'I'll- cross boughed tree that marked the spot 
And made it boh ground : 

I . i !]<■ earl hlj cit 5 aol 
Who hath the heavenly found. 



NATTHAUGHT, THE DEACON. 

N \ i HA.UGHT, the Indian deacon, who of old 
Dwelt, poor bul blameless, where his narrowing 

< lape 
Stretches its shrunk arm out to all the winds 
And the relentless smiting of the waves. 
Awoke one morning from a pleasant dream 
Of a good angel dropping in his hand 
A fair, broad gold-piece, in the name of God. 

II ■ ro te and went forth with the early day- 
Far inland, where the voices of the waves 
Mellowed and mingled with the whispering leaves, 
As, through the tangle of the low, thick woods, 
II is arched his traps Therein nor beast nor 

bird 
H ■ found ; though meanwhile in the reedy pools 
The otter plashed, and underneath the pines 
The partridge drummed : and as his thoughts 

went back 
To the sick wife and little child at home, 
What marvel that the poor man felt his faith 
Too weak to bear its burden, — like a rope 
That, strand by strand uncoiling, breaks above 
rasps it. " Even now, ( ) Lord ! 
Send me," he prayed, " the angel of my dream ! 
Nauhaugrrl Is very poor; he cannot wait. 

Even as he spake he heard at his bare feet 

A low, metallic (dink, and, looking down, 

II" saw a dainty purse with disksof gold 

Crowding its silken net. Awhile he held 

The treasure up before his eyes, alone 

With Ins great need, feeling the wondrous coins 

Slid ■ through his eager fingers, one by one. 

So then the dream was true The angel brought 

One broad piece only ; shod 1 he take all these? 

Who would be wiser, in the blind, dumb woods ? 

The los r, doubtL ss rich, would scarcely miss 

Tins dropped crumb from a table always full. 

S ill, while he mused, he seemed to hear the cry 

< )f a starved child ; the sick face of his wife 

Tempted him. Heart and flesh in fierce revolt 

Urged the wild license of his savage youth 

Again scruples. Hitter foil, 

Prayer, fasting, dread of blame, and pitiless eyes 

To watch his halting, — had he lost for these 

The IH' dm u of the w Is ; — the hunting-grounds 

Of happy spirits for a walled in heaven 

Ug psalms ? One healed the sick 
Y<i \ far off thousands of moons ago : 
Had he not prayed him night and day to come 
And euro his bed-bo ind wife ? Was there a hell ? 
Were all his fathers' people writhing there — 
Like the poor shell-fish set to boil alive — 
Forever, nying never? If he kept 
This gold, so needed, would the dreadful God 
Torment him like a Mohawk's captive stuck 
With slow-consuming splinters V Would the 
saints 



And the white angels dance and laugh to see him 
Bum like a pitch-pine torch? His Christian 

garb 
Seemed lading from him; with the fear and 

shame 
Of Adam naked at the cool of day, 
lh gazed around. A black snake lay in coil 
On the hot sand, a crow with sidelong eye 
Watched from a dead bough. All his Indian lore 
Of evil blending with a convi rt's faith 
In tin- supernal terrors of ±he Book, 
He saw the Tempter in the coiling snake 
And ominous, black-winged bird; and all the 

while 
The low rebuking of the distant waves 
Stole in upon him like the voice of Hod 
Among the trees of Eden. Girding up 
His soul's loins with a resolute hand, he thrust 
The base thought from him : " Nauhaught, be a 

man ! 
Starve, if need be ; but, while you live, look out 
From honest eyes on all men, unashamed. 

< rod help me ! I am a deacon of the church, 
A baptized, praying Indian ! Should I do 
This secret meanness, even the barken knots 
Of the old trees would turn to eyes to see it, 
The birds would tell of it, and all the leaves 
Whisper above me : ' Nauhaught is a thief ! ' 
The sun would know it, and the stars that hide 
Behind his light would watch me, and at night 
Follow me with their sharp, accusing eyes. 

Yea, thou, God, seest me ! " Then Nauhaught 

drew 
Closer his belt of leather, dulling thus 
The pain of hunger, and walked bravely back 
To the brown fishing-hamlet by the sea ; 
And, pausing at the inn-door, cheerily asked : 
■' Who hath lost aught to-day ? " 

"I," said a voice ; 
" Ten golden pieces, in a silken purse, 
M 3 daughter's hariSiwork." He looked, audio! 
One stood before him in a coat of frieze, 
And the glazed hat of a seafaring man, 
Shrewd-faced, broad-shouldered, with no trace of 

wings. 
Marvelling, he dropped within the stranger's 

hand 
The silken web, and turned to go his way. 
But the man said : " A tithe at least is yours ; 
Take it in (Jod's name as an honest man." 
And as the deacon's dusky fingers closed 

< )\ it the golden gift, " Yea, in God's name 

I take it, with a poor man's thanks," he said. 

So down the street that, like a river of sand, 
Han, wdiite in sunshine, to the summer sea, 
He sought his home, singing and praising ( bid ; 
And when his neighbors in their careless way 
Spoke of the owner of the silken purse — 
A Wellfieet skipper, known in every port 
That the Cape opens in its sandy wall — 
He answered, with a wise smile, to himself: 
" I saw the angel where they see a man." 



IN SCHOOL-DAYS. 

Still sits the school-house by the road, 

A ragged beggar sunning ; 
Around it still the sumachs grow, 

And blackberry-vines are running. 

Within, the master's desk is seen, 
Deep scarred by raps official ; 

The warping floor, the battered seats, 
The jack-knife's carved, initial ; 



252 



GAItlBALDI.— AFTER, ELECTION.— MY TRIUMPH. 



The charcoal Erescos on its wall , 
lis door's worn sill, bel raj bag 

The feel that, creeping slow to school, 
\\ ', hi atoi ming ou1 bo playing ! 

u inter sun 

Shone over Lt at setl ing ; 
Lit up its western window-panes, 
And Lew eaves' icy fretting. 

It touched tin- tangled golden curls, 
And brown eyes lull of grieving, 

( )t one who still her Bteps delayed 
When all the school were leaving. 

For mar her stood the little boy 

Her childish Ea\ or singled : 
His cap pulled low upon a face 

Where pride and shame were mingled.. 

Pushing with restless feet the snow 
To right ami left, be lingered ; — 
As restlessly her till > hands 

The blue-checked apron fingered. 

He saw her lift her eyes ; be felt 
The soft hand's light caressing, 

And heard the tremble of her voice, 
As if a fault confessing. 

" I 'm sorry that I spelt the word : 

I hate to go above you, 
Because,'' — the brown eyes lower fell, — 

" Because, you see, I love you ! " 

Still memory to a gray-haired man 
That sweet child-face is showing. 

Dear girl ! the grasses on her grave 
Have forty years been growing ! 

lie lives to learn, in life's hard school, 
How few who pass above him 

Lament their triumph and his loss, 
Like her, — because they love him. 



GARIBALDI. 

In trance and dream of old, God's prophet saw 
The casting down of thrones. Thou, watching 

lone 
The hot Sardinian coast-line, hazy-hilled, 
Where, fringing round Cain-era's rocky zone 
W'nli foam, the slow waves gather and withdraw, 
Behold'st the vision of the seer fulfilled, 
And hear'st the sea-winds burdened with a 

sound 
Of falling chains, as, one by one, unbound, 

I inns lift their right hands up and swear 
Their oath of freedom. From the chalk-white 
wall 
Of England, from the black Carpathian range, 
Along the Danube and the Theiss, through all 
The passes of the Spanish Pyrenees, 
And from the Seine's thronged hanks, a murmur 

I I'.; 

And glad floats to thee o'er thy summer seas 
On the salt wind that stirs thy whitening hair, — 

The song of freedom's bloodless victories ! 
Rejoice, Garibaldi ! Though thy sword 
failed at Rome's gates, and blood seemed vainly 

poured 
Where, in Christ's name, the crowned infidel 
Of France wroughl murder with tie' arms of hell 

On thai sad mountain slope whose ghostly dead, 
Unmindful of the gray exorcist's ban, 
Walk, unappeased, the chambered Vatican, 



And draw the curtains of Napoleon's lied ! 

God's providence is not blind, put, full of eyes, 

It searches all the refuges of lies ; 

And in His time and way, t be accursed things 
Before whose evil feet thy battle gage 
Has clashed defiance from bot youth to age 

Shall perish. All men shall be priests and kings, - 
One royal brotherhood, one church made free 
By love, which is the law of liberty ! 

L869. 



AFTER ELECTION. 

Tin: day's sharp strife is ended now, 
Our work is done, God knoweth how ! 
As on the thronged, unresti'ul town 
'The patience of the moon looks down, 
1 wait to hear, beside the wire, 
The voices of its tongues of fire. 

Slow, doubtful, faint, they seem at first: 
Be strong, my heart, to know the worst ! 
I lark ! — there the Alleghanies spoke ; 
That sound from lake and prairie broke, 
That sunset-gun of triumph rent 
The silence of a continent ! 

That signal from Nebraska sprung, 

This, from Nevada's mountain tongue ! 

Is that thy answer, strong and free, 

<) loyal heart of Tennessee ? 

What strange, glad voice is that which calls 

From Wagner's grave and Sumter's walls? 

From Mississippi's fountain-head 
A sound as of the bison's tread ! 
There rustled freedom's ('barter Oak ! 
In that wild burst the Ozarks spoke ! 
Cheer answers cheer from rise to set 
< )f sun. We have a country yet ! 

The praise, O God, be thine alone ! 
Thou givest not for bread a stone ; 
Thou hast not led us through the night 
To blind us with returning light ; 
Not through the furnace have we passed, 
To perish at its mouth at last. 

O night of peace, thy flight restrain ! 
November's moon, be slow to wane ! 
Shine on the freedman's cabin floor, 
On brows of prayer a blessing pour ; 
And give, with full assurance blest, 
The weary heart of Freedom rest ! 

1868. 



MY TRIUMPH. 

The autumn-time has come ; 
On woods that dream of bloom, 
And over purpling vines, 
The low sun fainter shines. 

The aster-flower is failing, 
The hazel's gold is paling ; 
Vet, overhead more near 
The eternal stars appear ! 

And present gratitude 
Insures the future's good, 
And for the things I see 
1 trust the things to )>c ; 



THE HIVE AT GETTYSBURG.— HOWARD AT ATLANTA. 



253 



That in the paths untrod. 
And the long days of < rod, 
My feet shall still be led, 
My heart be comforted. 

O living friends who love me ! 

dear ones gone above me ! 
Careless of other fame, 

1 leave to you my name. 

Hide it from idle praises, 

Save it from evil phrases: 

Why, when dear lips thai spake it 

Arc dumb, should strangers wake it? 

Let the thick curtain fall ; 
I better know than all 
H<>\v little I have gained, 
How vast the unattained, 

Not by the page word-painted 
Let life be banned or sainted : 
Deeper than written scroll 
The colors of the soul. 

Sweeter than any sung 

My songs that found no tongue ; 

Nobler than any fact 

My wish that failed of act. 

Others shall sing the song. 
Others shall right the wrong, — 
Finish what I begin, 
And all I fail of win. 

What matter, I or they ? 
Mine or another's day. 
So the right won 1 1 ie said 
And life the sweeter made ? 

Hail to the coming singers ! 
Hail to the biave light-bringers ! 
Forward I reach and share 
All that they sing and dare. 

The airs of heaven blow o'er me : 
A glory shines before me 
Of what mankind shall be, — 
Pure, generous, brave, and free. 

A dream of man and woman 
Diviner but still human, 
Solving the riddle old, 
Shaping the Age of Gold ! 

The love of God and neighbor ; 
An equal-handed labor ; 
The richtjr life, where beauty ■ 
Walks hand in hand with duty. 

Ring, bells in unreared steeples, 
The joy of unborn peoples ! 
Sound, trumpets far off blown, 
Your triumph is my own ! 

Parcel and part of all, 
I keep the festival, 
Fore-reach the good to be, 
And share the victory. 

I feel the earth move sunward, 
I join the great march onward, 
And take, by faith, while living, 
My freehold of thanksgiving. 



THE HIVE AT GETTYSBURG. 

In the old Hebrew myth the lion's frame, 

So terrible a In e, 
Bleached by the desert's sun and wind, became 

The wandering wild bees' hive; 
Ami he who, lone and naked-handed, tore 

Those jaws of death apart, 
In after time drew forth their honeyed store 

To strengthen Ins strong heart. 

Dead seemed the legend : but it only slept 

To wake beneath our sky ; 
Just on the spot whence ravening Treason crept 

Back to its lair to die, 
Bleeding and torn from Freedom's mountain 
bounds, 

A stained and shattered drum 
Is now the hive where, on their flowery rounds, 

The wild bees go and come. 

Unchallenged by a ghostly sentinel, 

They wander wide and far, 
Along green hillsides, sown with shot and shell, 

Through vales once choked with war. 
The low reveille of their battle-drum 

Disturbs no morning prayer ; 
With deeper peace in summer noons their hum 

Fills all the drowsy air. 

And Samson's riddle is our own to-day, 

Of sweetness from the strong, 
Of union, peace, and freedom plucked away 

From the rent jaws of wrong. 
From Treason's death we clraw a purer life, 

As, from the beast he slew, 
A sweetness sweeter for his latter strife 

The old-time athlete drew ! 



HOWARD AT ATLANTA. 

Right in the track where Sherman 

Ploughed his red furrow, 
Out of the narrow cabin, 

Up from the cellar's burrow, 
Gathered the little black people, 

With freedom newly dowered, 
Where, beside their Northern teacher, 

Stood the soldier, Howard. 

He listened and heard the children 

Of the poor and long-enslaved 
Reading the words of Jesus, 

Singing the songs of David. 
Behold ! — the dumb lips speaking, 

The blind eyes seeing ! 
Bones of the Prophet's vision 

Warmed into being ! 

Transformed he saw them passing 

Their new life's portal ! 
Almost it seemed the mortal 

Put on the immortal 
No more with the beasts of burden, 

No more with stone and clod, 
But crowned with glory and honor 

In the image of God ! 

There was the human chattel 

Its manhood taking; 
There, in each dark, brown statue. 

A soul was waking ! 
The man of many battles, 

With tears his eyelids pressing, 
, Stretched over those dusky foreheads 

His one-armed blessing. 



254 



TO LYDIA MAMA CHILD— THE PRAYER- SEEKER. 



And he said : " Who hears can never 

Pear & a or doubl you ; 
W'li.-.t shall I tell the children 

Up .Noil h about you '. " 
Then ran round a whisper, a murmur, 

Some answer devising ; 
And .1 In i le boy stood up: " Massa, 

Tell 'in we 're rising ! " 

o black boj of Atlanta ! 

lint half was spoken : 
The slave's chain and the master's 

Alike are broken. 
The one curse of the races 

I [eld both in tether : 
They are rising, all are rising, 

The black and white together! 

( t brave men and fair women ! 

Ill conies of hale and scorning : 

Shall the dark faces only 

Be turned to morning ? — 
Make 'rime your sole av< 

All-healing, all-redressing ; 
Meei Pate half-way, and make it 

A j(i_\ ami blessing ! 



TO LYDIA MARIA CHILD, 

UN BEADING HBB POEM IN "Tin: STANDARD. 

Tin: sweet spring da] is "lad with mnsie, 
llui through it sounds a sadder strain ; 

The worthiest of our narrowing circle 
Sings Loring's dirges o'er again. 

() woman greatly loved ! I join thee 
la tender memories of our friend ; 

W'iih thee across the awful spaces 
The greeting of a soul I send ! 

Whai cheer hath he '? How is it with him ? 

Where lingers In; this weary while V 
Over what pleasant fields of Heaven 

Dawns the sweet sunrise of his smile ? 

Does he not know our feet are treading 

The earth hard down on Slavery's grave ? 
That, in our crowning exultations, 

We miss the charm his presence gave ? 

Why on this spring air comes no whisper 

Prom him to tell us all is well ? 
W iy to our flower-time comes no token 

< )f lily and of asphodel ? 

I feel the unutterable longing, 

Thy hunger of the heart is mine ; 
I ! and grope for hands in darkness, 

My ear grows sharp for voice or sign. 

Still on the lips of all we question 

The finger of ( rod's silence lies ; 
Will the lost hands in ours lie folded ? 

Will the shut, iw elids e\ er rise ? 

<) friend ! no proof beyond this yearning, 

This outreach of our hearts, we need ; 

God will not, mock the hope He giveth, 
No love He prompts shall vainly plead. 

Then let us stretch our hands in darkness, 
And call our loved ones o'er and o'er ; 



Some day their arms shall close about us, 
And the old voices speak once more. 

No dreary splendors wait our coming 

Where rapt, ghost sits from ghost apart; 

Homeward we go to Heaven's fchanksgiv 
The harvest-gathering of the heart. 



ing, 



THE PRAYER-SEEKER. 

ALONG the aisle where prayer was made 
A woman, all in black arrayed, 
< !10SI \eiled, bet ween the I neeling host, 
With gliding motion ol' a ghost, 
Passed to the desk, and laid thereon 
A scroll which bore these words alone, 

Pray for m< .' 

Back from the place of worshipping 
She glided like a guilty thing : 

The rustle of her draperies, stirred 
By hurrying feet, alone was heard ; 
While, lull of awe. the preacher read, 
As out into the dark she sped : 

" Pray for me! " 

Back to the night, from whence she came. 
To unimagined grii i or shame ! 
Across the threshold of thai door 
None knew the burden that she I tore ; 
Alone she left the written scroll, 
The legend of a troubled soul, — 
Pray for me ! 

Glideon, poor ghost of woe or sin ! 
Thou leav'st a common need within; 
Each hears, like thee, some nameless weight, 
Some misery inarticulate, 
Seine secret sin, some shrouded dread, 
Some household sorrow all unsaid. 
Pray for us ! 

Bass on ! The type of all then art,, 
Sal w itness tn the common heart ! 
With face in veil and seal on lip. 
In mute and strange companionship, 
Like tine we wander to and fro, 
Dumbly imploring as we e,, : 
Pray for us! 

Ah, who shall pray, since he who pleads 
Our want perchance hath greater needs ? 

Yet the\ who make their loss the gain 
Of others shall not ask in vain, 
And Heaven hinds low to hear the prayer 
Of love from iips of self-despair : 
Pr<uj for us! 

In vain remorse and fear and hate 
Beat with bruised hands against a fate 
Whose wails of iron only move 
And open to the touch of love. 
I le only feels his burdens fall 
Who, taught by suffering, pities all. 
Pray for us .' 

He prayeth best who leaves unguessed 
The mystery of another's breast. 
Wh\ cheeks grow pale, why eyes o'erflow, 
Or In ads are white, thou need'st not, know. 
Enough to note by many a sign 
That every heart hath needs like thine. 
Pray for us .' 



A SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATION. 



POEMS FOB PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 



\ si Mi; I I'UAL MANIFP1STATIOX. 

AT Till; president's levee, brown univer- 
sitj , '-".'in 6th month, 1870. 

To D\v bhe plant by Williams set 

Its summer bloom discloses; 
The wilding sweetbrier of his prayers 

Is crowned with cultured roses. 

One- more bhe [sland State repeats 

The lesson that he taught her, 
And hinds his pearl of charity 

Upon her brown-locked daughter. 

Is 't fancy that he watches still 

1 1 is providence plantations ? 
That st ill tin- careful Founder takes 

A part on these occasions ? 

Mi thinks I see that reverend form, 

Which ;dl of us so well know : 
He rises up to speak; he jogs 

The presidential elbow. 

"Good friends, " he says, "you reap afield 

I sowed in self-denial, 
For toleration bad its griefs 

And charity its trial. 

" Great grace, as saith Sir Thomas More, 

To 1 1 i in must needs he given 
Who heareth heresy and leaves 

The heretic to Heaven ! 

" I hear again the snuffled tones, 

I see in dreary vision 
Dyspeptic dreamers, spiritual bores, 

And prophets with amission. 

" Bach zealot thrust before my eyes 

His Scripture-garbled label; 
All creeds were shouted in my ears 

As with the tongues of Babel. 

" Scourged at one cart-tail, each denied 

The hope of every other ; 
Each martyr shook his branded list 

At the conscience of his brother ! 

"How cleft the dreary drone of man 

The shriller pipe of woman. 
As Gorton led his saints elect, 

Who held all things in common ! 

" Their gay robes trailed in ditch and swamp, 

And torn by thorn and thicket, 
The dajicing-girls of Merry Mount 

Came dragging to my wicket. 

"Shrill Anabaptists, shorn of ears ; 

Gray witch wives, hobbling slowly; 
Anil Antinomians, free of law, 

Whose very sins were holy. 

"Hoarse ranters, crazed Fifth Monarchists, 
Of stripes and bondage braggarts, 

Pale Churchmen, with signed rubrics snatched 
From Puritanic fagots. 

"Ami last, not least, the Quakers came, 
With tongues still sore from burning, 



The Bay State's dust from oft" their feet 
Before my threshold spurning; 

" A motley host, the Lord's debris, 
Faith's odds and ends together; 

Well might I shrink from guests with lungs 
Tough as their breeches leather : 

" If, when the hangman at their heels 
('attic, rope in hand to catch them, 

I took the hunted outcasts in 
I never sent to fetch them. 

" I fed, but spared them not a whit ; 

1 gave to till who walked in, 
Not clams and succotash alone, 

But stronger meat of doctrine. 

" I proved the prophets false, I pricked 

The bubble of perfection, 
And clapped upon their inner light 

The snuffers of election. 

"And, looking backward on my times, 
One thing, at least, I'm proud for ; 

I kept each sectary's dish apart, 
And made no spiritual chowder. 

" Where now the blending signs of sect 

Would puzzle their assorter, 
The dry-shod Quaker kept the land, 

The Baptist held the water. 

II A common coat now serves for both, 
The hat's no more a fixture ; 

And which was wet and which was dry, 
Who knows in such a mixture V 

1 ' Well ! He who fashioned Peter's dream 

To bless them all is able ; 
And bird and beast and creeping thing 

Make clean upon His table ! 

" I walked by my own light ; but when 

The ways of faith divided, 
Was I to force unwilling feet 

To tread the path that I did V 

" I touched the garment-hem of truth, 

Yet saw not all its splendor ; 
I knew enough of doubt to feel 

For every conscience tender. 

" God left men free of choice, as when 

His Eden-trees were planted ; 
Because they chose amiss, should I 

Deny the gift He granted ? 

" So, with a common sense of need, 
Our common weakness feeling, 

I left them with myself to God 
And His all-gracious dealing ! 

" I kept His plan whose rain and sun 

To tare and wheat are given; 
And if the ways to hell were free, 

I left them free to heaven ! " 

Take heart with us, O man of old, 
Soul-freedom's brave confessor, 

So love of God and man wax strong, 
Let sect and creed be lesser. 



356 



THE LAURELS "—II V MX. 



The jarring discords of fchj daj 
In ours one In mn are swelling ; 

The wandei ing feet, fche severed paths, 
All s.ck our Father's dwelling. 

Ami slowly learns the world the truth 
That makes us all thy debtor, — 

That holy hi'.' is more than rite, 
Ami spirit more than lei ber ; 

Thai they who differ pole wide serve 
I ■ archance the common Master, 

Ami other shei pHi hath than they 
W'lui graze one narrow pasture ! 

For truth's worst foe is he who elaims 

To act as Cod's avenger, 
And deems, beyond his sentry-beat, 

The crystal walls in danger ! 

Who sets fur heresy his traps 
( )f verbal quirk ami quibble, 

And weeds tin garden of the Lord 
With Satan's borrowed dibble. 

Today our hearts like organ keys 
< me Master's touch are feeling ; 

The branches of a common Vine 
Have only leaves of healing. 

Coworkers, yet from varied fields, 
We share this restful nooning; 

The Quaker with the Baptist here 
Believes in close communing. 

Forgive, dear saint, the playful tone, 
Too- light for thy deserving ; 

Thanks for thy generous faith in man, 
Thy trust in God unswerving. 

Still echo in the hearts of men 

The words that thou hast, spoken; 

Xo forge of hell can weld again 
The fetters thou hast broken. 

The pilgrim needs a ]>ass no more 

From Roman or Genevan ; 
Thought-free, no ghostly tollman keeps 

Henceforth the road to Heaven ! 



"THE LAURELS." 

AT TDK TWENTIETH AND LAST ANNIVERSARY. 

From these wild rocks I look to-day 
O'er leagues of dancing waves, and see 

The far, low coast-line stretch away 
To where our river meets the sea. 

The light wind blowing off the land 
Is burdened with old voices ; through 

Shut eyes I see how lip and hand 
The greeting of old days renew. 

friends \\ hose hearts still keep their prime, 
Whose bright example warms and cheers, 

Ye beach us how to smile at Time, 
And set to music all his years ! 

1 thank you for sweet summer days, 
For pleasant memories lingering long, 

for joj I'ul meet Lngs, fond delays, 
And ties of friendship woven strong. 

As for the last time, side by side, 

You tread the paths familiar grown, 

I reach across the severing tide, 

And blend my farewells with your own, 



Make room, <> river of our home ! 
For other feet in place of ours, 

A n I in t he summers \ et to come, 
Make glad another Feast of Flowers ! 

Hold in thy mirror, calm and deep, 
The pleasant put i ires thou hast seen ; 

Forget thy lovers not, hut keep 
Our memory like thy laurels green. 

Isle op Shoals, 7th m>'.< 1870.- 



HYMX 

FOB THE CELEBRATION OF EMANCIPATION AT 

NEWBURYPORT. 

Xot unto us who did but seek 

The word that burned within to speak, 

Xot unto us this day belong 

The triumph and exultant song. 

Upon us fell in early youth 
The burden of unwelcome truth, 
And left us, weak and frail and few, 
The censor's painful work to do. 

Thenceforth our life a fight became. 
The air we breathed was hot with blame ; 
For not with gauged and softened tone 
We made the bondsman's cause our own. 

We bore, as Freedom's hope forlorn, 
The private hate, the public scorn ; 
Yet held through all the paths we trod 
Our faith in man and trust in God. 

We prayed and hoped ; but still, with awe, 
The coming of the sword we saw ; 
We heard the nearing steps of doom, 
We saw the shade of things to come. 

In grief which they alone can feel 
Who from a mother's wrong appeal, 
With blended lines of fear and hope 
We cast our country's horoscope. 

For still within her house of life 
We marked the lurid sign of strife, 
And poisoning and imbittering all. 
We saw the star of Wormwood fall. 

1 >eep as our love for her became 
Our hate of all that wrought her shame, 
And if, thereby, with tongue and pen 
We erred, — we were but mortal men. 

We hoped for peace ; our eyes survey 
The blood-red dawn of Freedom's day ; 
We prayed for love to loose the chain ; 
'T is shorn by battle's axe in twain ! 

Xor skill nor strength nor zeal of onrs 
Has mined and heaved the hostile towers; 
Xot by our hands is turned the key 
That sets the sighing captives free. 

A redder sea than Egypt's wave 
Is piled and parted for the slave; 
A darker cloud moves on in light; 
A fiercer fire is guide by night ! 

The praise, O Lord ! is Thine alone, 
In Thy own way Thy work is done ! 
Our fioor gifts at Thy feet we cast, 
To whom be glory, first and last ! 

1865. 



THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 



257 



THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGKIM, 



AND OTHER POEMS. 



FRANCIS DANIEL PASTORIUS. 

The beginnings of German emigration to America may 
1 led to the personal influence of William Penn, 

who in 1671 visited the Continent, and made the ac- 
quaintance of an intelligent and highly cultivated circle 
of Pietists, or Mystics, who, reviving in the seventeenth 
century the spiritual faith and worship of Tauler and 

' mdsof God" in the fourteenth, gather* 
the pastor Spener, and the youngand beautiful Eleonora 
Johanna Von Merlau. In this circle originated the 
Frankfort Land Company, which bought of William 
Penn, the Governor of Pennsylvania, a tract of land 
near the new city of Philadelphia. 

The company's agent in the New World was a rising 
young lawyer, Francis Daniel Pastorius, son of Judge 
Pastorius, of Windsheim, who, at the age of seventeen, 

entered the University of \ f. He tudied law at 

Strasburg. Basle, and Jena, ami at Ratisbon, tl 
the Imperial Government, obtained a practical knowl- 
edge of international polity. Sui --fill in all his exam- 
inations and disputation-, he received the degree of 

■ i Law ar Nuremberg in 1676. in 16791 
law lecturer at Frankfort, where he became deeply in- 
terested in the teachings of Dr. Spener; In IfitJO M he 
I in France. England, Ireland, and Italy with 
his friend Herr Von Rodeck. "1 was.'' he says, "glad 
to enjoy again the company of my Christian friends, 
rather than be with Von 1; g and dancing." 

In 1683, in company with a small number of German 
Friends, he emigrated to America, settling upon the 
Frankfort Company's tract between the Schuylkill and 
the Delaware Rivers. The township was divided into 
four hamlets, namely, Germantown, Krisheim, Crefield, 
and Sommerhausen. Soon after his arrival he united 
himself with the Societyof friend.-, and became one of 
its most a! il<- an 1 devoted members, as well as th 
nized head and lawgiver of the settlement. He' married. 
two years alter his arrival, Auneke i Anna), daughter of 
Dr. klosterman, of Miihlheim. 

In the year ltJSS he drew up a memorial against 
slaveholding, which was adopted by the Germantown 
Friends and sent up to the Monthl 1 thence 

■ early Meeting at Philadelphia. Jt is noteworthy 
as the first protest made by a religious body against Negro 
The original document > ed in 1844 

by the Philadelphia antiquarian, Nathan Kite, and pub- 
lished in "The Friend " (Vol. XVIII., No. 16}. It is a 
bold and direct appeal to the best instincts of the heart. 
n it." he asks, "these negroes as much right to 
fight for their freedom as you have to keep them 

Under the wise direction of Pastorius, the German- 
town settlement prospered. The inhabitants 
U and vineyards, and surrounded fchem- 
i! h souvenirs of their old home. A large number 
o f them were linen-weavers, a- well as small farmers, 
The Quakers were the principal sect, but men of all re- 
ligions were tolerated, an I lived together in harmony. 
In 1692 Richard Frame published, in what he called 
"Description of Pennsylvania,'' in which he 
alludes to the settlement: — 

'The German town of which 1 spoke before. 
Which is at least in length one mile or more. 
Where live- High I lie an 1 Low Dutch, 
Whose trade in we iving linen cloth is much,— 
There grows the flax, as also you may know 
That from the same they do divide the tow. 
Their trade suit - well their b ibil ition. 
We find convenience lor their upation." 

Pastori have been on intimate terms with 

William Penn, Thomas Lloyd, I Logan 

Thomas 81 •>.. and other leading men in the Province 
belonging to hi- own religion- society, a- also with Kel- 
pius, the learned Mystic oi tie- Wis ahickon, with the 
pastor of the Swedes' church, ami the Leaders of the 
Mennonites, BCewrote a description oi Pennsylvania, 
vhich was published at Frankfort and Leipsic in 170U 

17 



and 1701. Hi- '■ Li lints," etc., written in 

German and dedicated to Prof. Schurmberg, his old 

teacher, was published in 1690. lie left behind him 

many unpublished manusci | ring a very wide 

subjects, most of which are now lost. Onehnge 

manuscript Eolio, entitled '"Hive Beestock, Melliotro- 

pheum Alucar, or Rusca Apium," still remains, contain 

ing one thousand pages with about one hundred lines to 

a page, it i.- a medlej oi knowledge and fancy, history, 

philosophy, and poetry, written in seven languages. \ 

i : ion of hi.- poi he pleasures of 

gardening, tin- description of flowers, and the care of 

bees. The following specimen of his punning Latin is 

nl-pilfeier : — 

i.i o ini dm reptas i lndaria nostra 
Tangere fallaci poma raveto manu, 

in obsequens Caxit Dei d opto, 

Cummalis nostris ut malacuncta feras." 

or Oswald Seidensticker. to whose papers in 
l>< ,■ Detctscht Pioneer ami thai able periodical the 
"Penn Monthly," of Philadelphia, 1 am indebted for 
many of the i to the German 

pilgrims of the New World, thus closes his notice of 
Pastorius : — 

■■ No tombstone, not evi n a record of burial, indicates 
where his remains have found their last resting-place, 
ami tie- pardonable desire to associate the homage due 
to this distinguished man with some visible memento 
cannot, fie gratified. There i- no reason to suppose that 
he was interred in any other place than the Frii 
burying-ground in Germantown, though the fact is not 
attested by any definite source of information. After 
ail. this obliteration of the last trace of his earthly ex- 
istence is but typical of what ha- overtaken the times 
which he represents: that Germantown which he 
founded, which saw him live and move, is at present 
but a quaint idyl of the past, almost a myth, barely 
remembered and little cared for by the keener race that 

The Pilgrims of Plymouth have not lacked historian 
and poet. Justice has been done to their faith, courage, 
and self-sacrifice, and to the mighty influence of their 
endeavors to establish righteousness on the earth. The 

Quaker pilgrims of Pennsylvania, seeking the same ob- 
ject by different means, have not been equally fortunate. 
The power of their testimony for truth and holiness, 
peace and freedom, enforced only by what Milton calls 
'•the unresistible might of meekness." has been felt 
through two centuries in the amelioration of penal sever- 
ities, tin- abolition of slavery, the reform of the erring, 
the relief of the poor and suffering. — felt, in brief, in 
every step of human progress, Put of the men them- 
selves, with the single exception of William Penn, 
scarcely anything is known. Contrasted, from the out- 
set, witli the stern, aggressive Puritans of New England, 
they have come t o be regarded as "a feeble folk," with 
a personality a- doub ful a- their unrecorded graves. 
They were not soldiers, like .Miles Standish ; they had 
no figure so picturesque as Vane, no leader so rashly 
brave and haughty as Endicott. No Cotton Mather 
their Magnalia . : they had no awful drama of 
supernaturalism in which Satan and his angels were 
actors; and the only witch mentioned in their simple 
annals was a poor old Swedish woman, who. on com- 
plaint of her countrywomen, was tried and acquitted of 
everything but imbecility and lolly. Nothing but com- 
monplace offices of civility calm- to pass between them 
and the- Indians: indeed, their enemies taunted them 
with the fact, that the savages did not regard them as 
Christians, but just such men as themselves. Yet it 
must be apparent to everj careful observer of the pro- 
'. iii.'t'iean civilization that its two principal cur- 
rents had their sources in the entirelj opposite directions 
of the Puritan ai I Qi To use the words 

of a late writer:* "The historical forces, with which 
no others may be compared in their influence on the 

Mulford's Nation, pp. 2(17. 368. 



358 



THE PENNSYLVANIA PTLGRTM. 



aye been those oJ the I'm itan thi 

The strength of the one was in thi << an in- 

N isible I - nal w ill, which would 

establish righteousness on earth ; and thence 

on of a direct personal re ponsibility, which 
could be tempt ternal splendor and could be 

shaken by '- and could no1 be 

i'i" I n i' i h of i he other was 
the witness in the human spirit to an eternal Word, an 
Inner Voice which spoke to each alone, while ye( ii 
spoke to every man ; n Light which each was to follow, 
and which yet was the light ol the world; and all other 
voices \\t re silt m before (his, an 
whither i icred than t he worn waj s of 

: at aisles." 

It will be sufficiently apparent to the reader that, in 
the poem which follows, I have attempted nothing 
bej ond a studj of the life and times of the Pennsylvania 
colonist,— a simple picture of a noteworthy man and his 
locality. The colors of my sketch arc all vcrj sober, 
toned down to the quiet and dream} atmosphere through 

which its subject is visible. Whether, in the • lare I 

tumult of the i ire ven i time, qcd a pic will find favor 

maj well be questioned. I only know that it has be- 
guiled forme some hours of weariness, and that, what 
ever maj be its measure of public appreciation, it litis 
been to me its ovi n reward. 

J. G. W. 

Ami sitt'icv. 5W mo., 1873. 



II Ml. to posterit \ ! 

Hail, future men of < termanopolis ! 
Let the young generations yet to be 
Look kindly upon this. 
Think how .your fathers left their native land, — 
Dear German land! o sacred hearths and 

homes ! — 
And, where the wild beast roams, 
In patience planned 
New forest-homes beyond the mighty sea, 

There undisturbed and tree 
To live as brothers of one family, 
What pains and cares befell, 
What trials and what fears, 
Remember, and win rein we have done well 
Follow our footsteps, men of coming years ! 
Where we have failed to do 
Aright, or wisely live, 
Be warned by us, the better way pursue, 
And, knowing we were human, even as you, 
Pity us and forgn e ! 
Farewell, Posterit] ! 
Farewi II, dear ( fermany ! 
Forevermore farewell ! 
From the Latin of Frances Daniel Pastorius in the 
orcls. 1688. 



PRELUDE. 

I -i\(t the Pilgrim of a softer clime 
And milder speech than I hose hra\ e men's who 
brought 
To the ice and iron of our winter time 
A will as firm, a creed as stern, and wrought 
With one mailed hand, and with the other 
fought. 

Simply, as fits my theme, in I lelj rhyme 

I Lng the blui ej ed < lerman Spener taught, 
Through whose veiled, mystic faith the forward 
Light, 
Steady and still, an easy brightness, shone. 
Transfiguring till things in its radiance white. 
Th. garland which his meekness never -ought 
I bring him ; over fields of harvest sown 

.i .Is ol blessing, now to ripeness grown, 
I hid the sower pass before I he reapers' Bight. 



THE I'K.WSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 

Nf.\i'.k in tenderer quiet lapsed the day 
From Pennsylvania's vales of spring away, 
Where, forest walled, the scattered hamlets lay 

Along the wedded rivers. One long bar 
< M purple cloud, on which the evening star 
Shone like a, jewel on a scimitar, 

Held the sky's golden gateway. Through the 

deep 
Mush of the woods a. murmur seemed to Creep, 
The Schuylkill whispering in B \ oice of Bleep. 

All else was still. The oxen from their ploughs 
Rested at hist, and from their long day's browse 

('tune the dim files of Krisheiln's home-hound 



And the young city, round whose virgin zone 
The rivers like two mighty arms were thrown, 
Marked by the smoke of evening fires alone, 

li,i\ in the distance, lovely even then 
With its fair women and its stately men 
Gracing the forest court of William Penn, 

Qtban yet sylvan; in its rough hewn frames 
Of oak and pine the dryads lull their claims, 

And lent, its streets their pleasant woodland 
names. 

Anna Pastorius down the leaf] lane 

Looked city-ward, then stoopi d to prune again 

Her vines and simples, with a sigh of pain. 

For last the streaks of ruddy sunset paled 
In the oak clearing, and. as daylight failed, 
Slow, overhead, the dusky night birds sailed. 

Again she looked: between green walls of shade, 
With low-bent head as if with sorrow weighed, 
Daniel Pastorius slowly came and said, 

"(ioil's peace be with thee, Anna!" Then he 

stood 
Silent before her, wrestling with the mood 
< )l one who sees I he evil and not good. 

" What is it, my Pastorius V As she spoke, 
A slow, faint smile across his features hroke, 
Sadder than tears. "Dear heart," he stud, "our 

folk 

" Are even as others. Yea, our goodliest Friends 
Are frail ; our elders have their sellish ends, 
And few dare trust the Lord to make amends 

" For duty's loss. So even our feeble word 
For the dumb slaves the startled meeting heard 
As if a stone its quiet water stirred ; 

" And, as the clerk ceased reading, there began 
A ripple of dissent which downward ran 
In widening circles, as from man to man. 

" Somewhat was said of running before sent., 
<)1 tender fear that some their guide outwent, 
Troublers of Israel. I was scarce intent 

"On hearing, for behind the reverend row 

Of gallerj Friends, in dumb and pit is show 

I saw, methought, dark laces full ol woe. 

" And, in the spirit, I was taken where 
Tin \ (oiled and suffered; I was made aware 
Of shame and wrath and anguish .and despair! 



THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 



259 




"And while the meeting smothered our poor plea 
With cautious phrase, a Voice there seemed to be, 
• As ye have done to these ye do to me ! ' 

•' So it all passed; and the old tithe went on 
Of anise, mint, and cumin, till the sun 
Set. leaving still the weightier work undone. 

" Help, for the good man faileth ! Who is strong, 
!l these !»• weak ': Who shall rebuke the wrong. 
If these consent V How long, O Lord ! how long ! " 

He ceased ; and, bound in spirit with the bound, 
With folded arms, and eyes that sought the 

ground. 
Walked musingly his little garden round. 

About him, beaded with the falling dew, 

Rare plants of power and herbs of healing grew, 

Such as Van Helmont and Agrippa knew. 

For, by the lore of Gorlitz' gentle sage, 
With th ■ mild mystics of his dreamy age 
1 1.' i.i 1 th>- herbal signs of nature's page. 

As once he heard in sweet Von Merlau's 76 bowers 
Fair as herself, in boyhood's happy hours, 
The pious Spener read his creed in flowers. 

" The dear Lord give us patience ! " said his wife, 

Touching with ringer-tip an aloe, rife 

With leaves sharp-pointed like an Aztec knife. 

Or Carib spear, a gift to William Penn 
From tiie rare gardens of .John Evelyn, 
Brought from the Spanish Main by merchantmen. 

"See this strange plant its steady purpose hold, 
And, yeai by year, its patient leaves unfold. 
Till the young eyes that watched it first are old. 



" But some time, thou hast told me, there shall 

come 
A sudden beauty, brightness, and perfume, 
The century-moulded bud shall burst in bloom. 

" So may the seed which hath been sown to-day 
Grow with the years, and, after long delay, 
Break into bloom, and God's eternal Yea 

" Answer at last the patient prayers of them 
Who now, by faith alone, behold its stem 
Crowned with the flowers of Freedom's diadem 

" Meanwhile, to feel and suffer, work and wait 
Remains for us. The wrong indeed is great, 
But love and patience conquer soon or late." 

'■ Well hast thou said, my Anna ! " Tenderer 
Than youth's caress upon the head of her 
Pastoiius laid his hand. " Shall we demur 

" Because the vision tarrieth V In an hour 

We dream not of the slow-grown bud may flower, 

And what was sown in weakness rise in power ! " 

Then through the vine-draped door whose legend 

read, 
" Procul este prophani ! " Anna led 
To where their child upon his little bed 

Looked up and smiled. " Dear heart," she said, 

" if we 
Must beaiers of a heavy burden be, 
Our boy, God willing, yet the day shall see 

" When, from the gallery to the farthest seat, 
Slave and slave owner shall no longer meet, 
But all .sit equal at the Master's feet." 



260 



THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 



On the stone hearth the blazing walnut block 
Set the low walls a-glimmer, showed the cock 
Rebuking Peter cm the Van Wyck clock, 

Slmiic dh old tomes of law and physic, side 
l'.\ side with Fox and Behmen, played al hide 
And Beek with Anna, midsl her household pride 

Of flaxen webs, and on the table, bare 
Of costly cloth or silver cup, bul where, 
Tasting the fat shads of the 1 >elaware, 

Thecourtlj Penn had praise 1 the goodwife 1 

iot id Eorace o'er her home brewed beer, 
Till even grave Pastorius smiled to hear. 

In such a home, beside the Schuylkill's wave, 
H II in peace with God and man, and gave 

Pood i" the poor and shelter to the sla\ e, 

For all too soon the New World's scandal shamed 
Tiie righteous code by Penn and Sidney framed, 
And men withheld the human rights they claimed. 

And -lowly wealth and station sanction lent, 
And hardened avarice, on its gains intent, 
Stifled the inward whisper of dissent. 

Yet all the while the burden rested sore 
On tender hearts. At last Pastorius lion' 
Their warning message to the Ch ireh's door 

In ( rod's name ; and t he haven of the \. or 1 
Wrought ever alter in the souls who heard. 
And a dead conscience in its grave-clothes stirred 

To tro ibled life, and urged the vain excuse 
Of Hebrew custom, patriarchal use, 
Good in itself if evil in abuse. 

Gravely Pastorius listened, not the less 
Discerning through the decent fig-leaf dress 
Of the poor plea its shame of selfishness. 

One Scripture rule, at least, was nnforgot ; 
He hid the outcast, and bewrayed him not; 
And, when his prey the human hunter sought, 

He scrupled not, while Anna's wise delay 

And proffered cheer prolonged the master's stay, 

To speed the black guesi safely on his way. 

Vet. who shall guess his bitter grief who lends 
His life to some -real cause, and finds his friends 
Shame or betray it for their private ends'/ 

How teit the Ma iter when his chosen strove 

In childish folly for their seats above; 
And that fond mother, blinded by her love, 

Besought him that her sons, beside his throne, 
Might sit on either hand? Amidst his own 
A stranger oft, companionless and lone, 

(lod's priest and prophet stands. The martyr's 
pain 

Erom scourge and cell and chain ; 

i the pang when, shouting in his train, 

His weak disciples by their lives deny 

Th loud hosanna daily cry, 

And make their echo of his truth a lie. 

His Ooresl home no hermit's cell he found, 
Guests, tnotlej minded, drew his hearth around, 
And held armed truce upon its neutral ground. 

Indian chiefs with battle bows unstrung, 
hero-limbed, likethose whom Homersung, 
I v lii ii t he world was young, 



Came with their tawny women, lithe and tall, 
Like bronzes in his friend Von Hodeck's hall,' 

< 'oniely, if black, and not unpleasing all. 

There hungry folk in homespun drab and gray 
Drew round his board on Monthly Meeting day, 

Genial, half merrj in their friendh way. 

Or, haply, pilgrims from the Fatherland, 

Weak, timid, homesick, slow to understand 

The New World's promise, sought his helping Land. 

Or painful Kelpius™ Erom his hermit den 
l!\ Wissahickon, maddest of good men. 
Dreamed o'er the Chiliast dreams of Petersen. 

Deep in the woods, where the small river slid 
Snake like in shade, the Helmatadt Mystic hid, 
Weird as a wizard over aits forbid, 

Reading the books fii Daniel and of John, 

And Behmen's Morning-Redness, through th,- 

Stone 

Of Wisdom, vouchsafed to his eyes alone, 

Whereby he read what man ne'er read before, 
And saw the visions man shall see no more, 
Till the great angel, striding sea and shore, 

Shall bid all flesh await, on land or ships, 
The warning trump of the Apocalypse, 
Shattering the heavens before the dread eclipse. 

Or meek-eyed Mennonist his bearded chin 
Leaned o'er the gate; or Ranter, pure within, 
Aired his perfection in a world of sin. 

Or, talking of old home scenes, Op den Graaf 
Teased the low back-log with his shodden stall', 
Till the red embers broke into a laugh 

And dance of flame, as if they fain would cheer 
The rugged face, half tender,' half austere, 
Touched with the pathos of a homesick tear ! 

Or Sluyter," saintly familist, whose word 
As law the Brethren of the Manor heard, 
Announced the speedy terrors of the Lord, 

And turned, like Lot at Sodom, from his race, 
Above a, wrecked world with complacent face 
Riding secure upon his plank of grace ! 

Haply, from Finland's birchen groves exiled, 
Manly in thought, in simple ways a child, 
His white hair floating round his visage mild. 

The Swedish pastor sought the Quaker's door. 
Pleas, d from his neighbor's lips to hear once more 
His long-disused and half-forgotten lore. 

For both could baffle Babel's lingual curse, 
And speak in Bion's Doric, and rehearse 

< ileanthes' hymn or Virgil's sounding verse. 

And oft Pastorius and the meek old man 
A lulled as Quaker and as Lutheran, 
Ending in Christian love, as they began. 

With lettered Lloyd on pleasant morns he strayed 
Where Sommerhausen over vales of shade 
Lopked miles away, by every flower delayed, 

Or song of bird, happy and free with one 
Who loved, like him, to let his memory run 
Over old fields of learning, and to sun 

Himself in Plato's wise philosophies, 
And dream with Philo over mysteries 
Whereof the dreamer never finds the keys ; 



THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 



261 



To touch all themes of thought, nor weakly --top 
For doubt of truth, but let the buckets drop 
Deep down and living the hidden waters up. 7 

For there was freedom in that wakening time 
Of tender souls; to differ was not crime ; 
The varying bells made up the perfect chime. 

On lips unlike was laid the altar's coal, 

The white, clear light, tradition-colored, stole 

Through the stained oriel of each human soul, 

Gathered from many sects, the Quaker brought 

His old beliefs, adjusting to the thought 

That moved his soul the creed his fathers taught. 

One faith alone, so broad that all mankind 
Within themselves its secret witness find. 
The soul's communion with the Eternal Mind, 

The Spirit's law, the Inward Rule and Guide, 
Scholar and peasant, lord and serf, allied. 
The polished Penn and Cromwell's Ironside. 

As still in Hemskerck's Quaker Meeting, 79 face 

By face in Flemish detail, we may trace 

How loose-mouthed boor and fine ancestral grace 

Sat in close contrast, — the clipt-headed churl, 
Broad market-dame, and simple serving-girl 
By skirt of silk and periwig in curl ! 

For soul touched soul ; the spiritual treasure- 
trove 
Made all men equal, none could rise above 
Nor sink below that level of God's love. 

So, with his rustic neighbors sitting down, 
The homespun frock beside the scholar's gown, 
Pastorius to the manners of the town 

Added the freedom of the woods, and sought 
The bookless wisdom by experience taught, 
And learned to love his new-found home, while 
not 

Forgetful of the old ; the seasons went 
Their rounds, and somewhat to his spirit lent 
Of their own calm and measureless content. 

Glad even to tears, he heard the robin sing 
His song of welcome to the Western spring, 
And bluebird borrowing from the sky his wing. 

And when the miracle of autumn came, 
And all the woods with many-colored flame 
Of splendor, making summer's greenness tame, 

Burned, unconsumed, a voice without a sound 
Spake to him from each kindled bush around, 
And made the strange, new landscape holy 
ground ! 

And when the bitter north-wind, keen and swift, 
Swept the white street and piled the dooryard 

drift, 
He exercised, as Friends might say, his gift 

Of verse, Dutch, English, Latin, like the hash 

Of corn and beans in Indian succotash ; 

Dull, doubtless, but with here and there a flash 

Of wit and fine conceit, — the good man's play 
Of quiet fancies, meet to while away 
The slow hours measuring oft' an idle day. 

At evening, while his wife put on her look 
Of love's endurance, from its niche he took 
The written pages of his ponderous book. 



And read, in half the languages of man, 
His "Rusca Apium," which with bees began, 
And through the gamut of creation ran. 

Or, now and then, the missive of some friend 
In gray Altorf or storied Niirnberg penned 
Dropped in upon him like a guest to spend 

The night beneath his roof-tree. Mystical 
The fair Von Merlau spake as waters fall 
And voices sound in dreams, and yet withal 

Human and sweet, as if each far, low tone, 

Over the roses of her gardens blown 

Brought the warm sense of beauty all her own. 

Wise Spener questioned what his friend could trace 
Of spiritual influx or of saving grace 
In the wild natures of the Indian race. 

And learned Schurmberg, fain, at times, to look 
From Talmud, Koran, Veds, and Pentateuch, 
Sought out his pupil in his far-off nook, 

To query with him of climatic change, 

Of bird, beast, reptile, in his forest range, 

Of flowers and fruits and simples new and strange. 

And thus the Old and New World reached their 

hands 
Across the water, and the friendly lands 
Talked with each other from their severed strands. 

Pastorius answered all : while seed and root 
Sent from his new home grew to flower and fruit 
Along the Rhine and at the Spessart's foot ; 

And, in return, the flowers his boyhood knew 
Smiled at his door, the same in form and hue, 
And on his vines the Rhenish clusters grew. 

No idler he ; whoever else might shirk, 
He set his hand to every honest work, — 
Farmer and teacher, court and meeting clerk. 

Still on the town seal his device is found, 
Grapes, flax, and thread-spool on a trefoil ground, 
With, " Vinum, Linum et Textkinum" wound. 

One house sufficed for gospel and for law, • 

Where Paul and Grotius, Scripture text and saw, 
Assured the good, and held the rest in awe. 

Whatever legal maze he wandered through, 
He kept the Sermon on the Mount in view, 
And justice always into mercy grew. 

No whipping-post he needed, stocks, nor jail, 
Nor ducking-stool ; the orchard-thief grew pale 
At his rebuke, the vixen ceased to rail, 

The usurer's grasp released the forfeit land ; 
The slanderer faltered at the witness-stand, 
And all men took his counsel for command. 

Was it caressing air, the brooding love 

Of tenderer skies than German land knew of, 

Green calm below, blue quietness above, 

Still flow of water, deep repose of wood 
That, with a sense of loving P'atherhood 
And childlike trust in the Eternal Good, 

Softened all hearts, and dulled the edge of hate, 
Hushed strife, and taught impatient zeal to wait 
The slow assurance of the better state ? 

Who knows what goadings in their sterner way 
O'er jagged ice, relieved by granite gray, 
Blew lound the men of Massachusetts Bay ? 



202 



THE PENNSYLVANIA PTLGRIM. 



Wh;it bate of heresj the east wind woke? 
\\ h.ii hints oi pitUess power and terror spoke 
In waves thai on their iron coast line broke ? 

Be it as i1 may: within the Land ot Penn 

The sectary yielded to the citizen, 

Ainl peaceful dwelt the man} creeded men. 

Peace brooded over all. No trumpet stung 
The air to madness, and no steeple flung 
Alarums dow □ from lulls at midnight rung. 

The laud slept well. The Indian from his face 
Washed all his war-paint off, and in the place 
Of battle-marches sped the peaceful chase, 

Or wrought for wages at the white man's side, — 
Giving tn kindness what his native pride 
And lazy freedom to all else di died. 

And well the CUrioUS scholar loved the old 
Traditions that, his swarthy neighbors told 

By wigwam- tires when nights were growing Cold, 

Discerned I he fact round which their lanc\ drew 
Its dreams, and held their childish faith more 

t rue 
To (hid and man than half the creeds he knew. 80 

The desert blossomed round him; vvheat-fie'lds 

rolled 
Beneath the warm wind waves of green and gold ; 
The planted ear returned its hundredfold. 

Great clusters ripen d in a. warmer sun 

Than that which by the Rhine stream shin:'; 

upon 
The purpling hillsides with low vines o'errim. 

A hunt each rustic porch the humming-bird 
Tried with light I ill, thi I scarce a petal stirred. 
The Old World flowers to virgin soil transferred; 

And the first-fruits of pear and apple, bending 
The young boughs down, their gold and russet 
blending, 

Made glad his heart, familiar odors lending 

To the fresh fragrance of the birch and pine, 

Life everlast ing, bay, and i giant , 

And all the subtle scents the woods combine. 



Fair 



First-Day mornings, steeped in summer 
calm 



Warm, tender, restful, sweet with woodland balm, 
Came to him, like some mother-hallowed psalm 

To the tired grinder at the noisy wheel 
Of labor, winding off from memory's reel 
A gulden thread of music. With no peal 

Of bells to call them to the house of praise, 
The scattered settlers through green torest-ways 
Walked meeting-ward. In reverent amaze 

The Indian trapper saw them, from the dim 

Shade of the alders on the rivulet's rim. 

Seek the Great Spirit's house to talk with Him. 

There, through the gathered stillness multiplied 
And made intense by sympathy, outside 
The sparrows sang, ami the gold robin cried, 

A swing upon his elm. A Eahrl perfume 
Breathed through the open windows of the room 
Prom locust trees, heavy with clustered bloom. 

Thither, perchance, sore tried confessors came, 

Whose ti rvor jail nor pillory could tame, 

Frond of the cropped ears meant to be their shame, 



Men who had eaten slavery's bitter bread 
In Indian isles; pale women who had Med 
Under the hangman's lash, and bravely said 

Cod's message through their prison's iron bars; 
And graj old soldier-converts, seamed with scars 
IV (very stricken held of England's wars 

Lowly before the Unseen Presence knelt 
Each waiting heart, till haply some one felt 
On his moved lips the seal of silence melt. 

Or, without spoken words, low breathings stole 
( >f a diviner life from soul to soul. 
Baptizing in one tender thought the whole. 

When shaken hands announced the meeting o'er, 
The friendly group still Lingered at the d ■, 

Greeting, inquiring, sharing all the. stoic 

Of weekly tidings. Meanwhile youth and maid 

Down the green vistas of the woodland strayed. 

Whispered and smiled and of t their feet delayed. 

Di'l the boy's whistle answer back the thrushes ? 

Did light girl laughter ripple through the bushes 
As brooks make merry over loots and rushes V 

[Jnvexed the sweet air seemed. Without a. wound 
The ear of silence heard, and every sound 
[ts place in nature's line accordance found. 

And solemn meeting, summer sky and wood, 
Old kindly faces, youth and maidenhood 
Seemed, like (bid's new creation, very good ! 

And, greeting all with quiet smile and word, 
Pastorius went his way. The unscared bird 
Sang at his side ; scarcely the squirrel stirred 

At his hushed footstep on the mossy sod; 
And, wheresoe'er the good man looked or trod, 
He felt the peace of mil lire and of ( k>d. 

His social life wore no ascetic form. 

He loved all beauty, without fear of harm. 

And in his veins his Teuton blood ran warm. 

SI net to himself, of other men no spy. 
He made his own no circuit judge to try 
The freer conscience of his neighbors by. 

With love rebuking, by his life alone, 
Gracious and sweet, the better wa \ was shown, 

The joy of one, who, seeking not- his own, 

And faithful to all scruples, finds al last 
The thorns and shards of duty overpast, 
And daily life, beyond his hope's forecast, 

Pleasant and beautiful with sight and sound, 
And flowers upspringing in its narrow round, 
And all his days with quiet gladness crowned. 

He sang not ; but, if sometimes tempted strong, 
He hummed what seemed like Altorf's Bur.-eln u 

song, 
1 lis good wife smiled, and did not count it wrong. 

For well he loved his boyhood's brot her band ; 
His memory, while he trod the New World's 

strand, 
A double-ganger walked the Fatherland! 

If, when on frosty Christmas eves the light 
Shone on his quiet hearth, he missed the sight 
Of Yule log. Tne, ami Christ child all in white; 

And closed his eyes, and listened to the sweet 
( Mil wait songs sounding down his uat ive st reet, 
And watched again the dancers' mingling feet ; 



THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM.— THE PAGEANT. 



2f>: 



Yet not the loss, when once the vision passed, 

He held the plain and sober maxims fast 

Of the dear Friends with whom Ins lot was cast. 

Still all attuned to nature's melodies, 

Hi' loved the bird's song in his dooryard trees, 

And the low hum of home-returning bees ; 

The blossomed flax, the tulip-trees in bloom 
Down tin- long street., the beauty and perfume 
Of apple-boughs, the mingling light and gloom 

Of Sommerhausen's woodlands, woven through 
With sun-threads ; and the music the wind drew, 
Mournful and sweet, from leaves it overblew. 

And evermore, beneath this outward sense, 
And through the common sequence of events, 
He felt the guiding hand of Providence 

Reach out of space. A Voice spake in his ear, 

And lo ! all other voices far and near 

Died at that whisper, full of meanings clear. 

The Light of Life shone round him ; one by one 
The wandering lights, that all mis-leading run, 
Went out like candles paling in the sun. 

That Light he followed, st ip !>v step, where'er 

It ha. us in the vision of the seer 

The wheels moved as the' spirit in the clear 

And terrible crystal move 1. with all their eyes 
Watching the living splendor sink or rise, 
Its will their will, knowing no otherwise. 

Within himself he found the law of right, 
He walked by faith and not the letter's sight, 
And read his Bible by the Inward Light. 

And if sometimes the slaves of form and rule, 
Frozen in their ere ids like fish in winter's pool, 
Tried the large tolerance of his liberal school, 

His dour was free to men of every name, 
He welcomed all the seeking souls who came, 
And no man's faith he made a cause of blame. 

But best he loved in leisure hours to see 

His own dear Friends sit by him knee to knee, 

In social converse, genial, frank, and free. 

There sometimes silence (it were hard to t il 
Who owned it first) upon the circle fell, 
Hushed Anna's busy wheel, and laid its spell 



On the black boy who grimaced by the hearth, 
To solemnize his shining face of mirth ; 
Only the old clock ticked amidst the dearth 

Of sound ; nor eye was raised nor hand was 

stirred 
In that soul-sabbath, till at last some word 
Of tender counsel or low prayer was heard. 

Then guests, who lingered but farewell to say 
And take love's message, went their homeward 

way ; 
So passed in peace the guileless Quaker's day. 

His was the Christian's unsung Age of Gold, 
A titter idyl titan the bards have told 
( )f Arno's banks or Arcady of old. 

Where still the Friends their place of burial keep, 
And century -rooted mosses o'er it en ep, 
The Nlirnberg scholar and his helpmeet sleep. 

And Anna's aloe? If it flowered at last 

In Bartram's garden, did John Woolman cast ■ 

A glance upon it as he meekly passed ? 

Anil did a. secret sympathy possess 
That tender soul, anil for the slave's redress 
Lend hope, strength, patience? It were vain to 
guess. 

Nay, were the plant itself hut mythical, 

Set in the fresco of tradition's wall 

Like Jotham's bramble, mattereth not at all. 

Enough to know that, through the winter's frost 
And summer's heat, no seed of truth is lost, 
And every duty pays at last its cost. 

For. ere Pastorius left the sun and air, 
God sent the answer to his life long prayer ; 
The child was born beside the Delaware, 

Who, in the power of a holy purpose lends, 

Guided his people unto nobler ends, 

And left them worthier of the name of Friend-. 

And lo ! the fulness of the time has come, 

And over all the exile's Western home, 

From sea to sea the flowers of freedom bloom ! 

And joy-bells ring,and silver trumpets blow ; 

But not for thee, Pastorius ! Even so 

The world forgets, but the wise angels know. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



THE PAGEANT. 

A SOUND as if from bells of silver, 
Or el tin cymbals smitten char. 
Through the frost-pictured panes I hear. 

A brightness which outshines the morning, 
A splendor brooking no delay, 
Beckons and tempts my feet away. 



I leave the trodden village highway 

For virgin snow paths glimmering through 
A jewelled elm-tree avenue ; 



Where, keen against the walls of sapphire. 
The gleaming tree-bolls, ice-embossed, 
Hold up their chandeliers of frost. 

I tread in Orient halls enchanted, 

I dream the Saga's dream of caves 
Gem-lit beneath the North Sea waves ! 

I walk the land of Eldorado, 

I touch its mimic garden bowers. 
Its silver leaves and diamond flowers ! 

The flora of the mvstic mine-world 
Around me lifts on crystal stems 
The petals of its clustered gems ! 



3G4 



THE PAGEANT. 




"A jewelled elm- tree avenue.' 



What miracle of weird transforming 
In this wild work of frost and light, 
This glimpse of glory infinite ! 

This foregleam of the Holy City 

Like that to him of Patmos given, 

The white bride coming down from heaven ! 

How flash the milked and mail clad alders, 

Through what sharp-glancing spears of reeds 
The brook its muffled water leads ! 

Yon maple, like the hush of Horeb, 

Burns unconsumed : a white, cold fire 
Rays out Urorn every grassy spire. 

Each slender rush and spike of mullein, 
Low laurel shrub and drooping tern, 
Transfigure 1, blaze where'er 1 turn. 

How yonder Ethiopian hemlock 

< Irowned with his glistening circlet stands ! 
What jewels Lighl his swarthy hands! 

Here, where the forest opens southward, 
Between its hospitable pines, 
As through a door, the warm sunshines. 

The jewels loosen on the branches, 

And lightlv, as the soft winds blow, 

Fall, tinkling, on the ice below. 

And through the clashing of tb iir cymbals 
I li iar tin old familiar fall 
Of water down the rocky wall. 



Where, from its wintry prison breaking, 
In dark and silence hidden long, 
The brook repeats its summer song. 

One instant flashing in the sunshine, 
Keen as a sabre from its sheath, 
Then lost again the ice beneath. 

I hear the rabbit lightly leaping, 

The foolish screaming of the jay, 
The chopper's axe-stroke far away ; 

The clamor of some neighboring barn -yard, 
The lazy cock's belated crow, 
Or cattle-tramp in crispy snow. 

And, as in some enchanted forest 

The lost knight hears his comrades sing, 
And, near at hand, their bridles ring, 

So welcome I these sounds and voices, 

These airs from far-off summer blown, 
This life that leaves me not alone. 

For the white glory overawes me; 
The crvstal terror of the seer 
Of Chebar's vision blinds me here. 

Rebuke me not, O sapphire heaven ! 

Thou stainless earth, lay not on me, 
Thy keen reproach of purity, 

If, in this august presence-chamber, 

I sigh for summer's leaf-green gloom 
And warm airs thick with odorous bloom 1 



THE SINGER.— CHIG AGO. 



265 



Let the strange frost-work sink and crumble, 
And let the loosened tree-boughs swing, 
Till all their bells of silver ring. 

Shine warmly down, thou sun of noon-time, 
On this chill pageant, melt and move 
The winter's frozen heart with love. 

And, soft and low, thou wind south-blowing, 
Breathe through a veil of tenderest haze, 
Thy prophecy of summer days. 

Come with thy green relief of promise, 
And to this dead, cold splendor bring 
The living jewels of the spring ! 



THE SINGER. 

Years since (but names to me before), 
Two sisters sought at eve my door ; 
Two song-birds wandering from their nest, 
A gray old farm-house in the West. 

How fresh of life the younger one, 
Half smiles, half tears, like rain in sun ! 
Her gravest mood could scarce displace 
The dimples of her nut-brown face. 

Wit sparkled on her lips not less 
For quick and tremulous tenderness ; 
And, following close her merriest glance, 
Dreamed through her eyes the heart's romance. 

Timid and still, the elder had 
Even then a smile too sweetly sad ; 
The crown of pain that all must wear 
Too early pressed her midnight hair. 

Yet ere the summer eve grew Jong, 
Her modest lips were sweet with song ; 
A memory haunted all her words 
Of clover-fields and singing birds. 

Her dark, dilating eyes expressed 

The broad horizons of the west ; 

Her speech dropped prairie flowers ; the gol 

Of harvest wheat about her rolled. 

Fore-doomed to song she seemed to me ; 

I queried not with destiny ; 

I knew the trial and the need, 

Yet, all the more, I said, God speed ! 

What could I other than I did ? 
Gould I a singing-bird forbid? 
Deny the wind-stirred leaf ? Rebuke 
The music of the forest brook ? 

She went with morning from my door, 
But left me richer than before ; 
Thenceforth I knew her voice of cheer, 
The welcome of her partial ear. 

Years passed : through all the land her name 
A pleasant household word became : 
All felt behind the singer stood 
A sweet and gracious womanhood. 

Her life was earnest work, not play ; 
Her tired feet climbed a weary way ; 
And even through her lighest strain 
We heard an undertone of pain. 

Unseen of her her fair fame grew, 
The good she did she rarely knew, 
Unguessed of her in life the love 
That rained its tears her grave above. 



When last I saw her, full of peace, 
She waited for her great release ; 
And that old friend so sage and bland, 
Our later Franklin, held her hand. 

For all that patriot bosoms stirs 
Had moved that woman's heart of hers, 
And men who toiled in storm and sun 
Found her their meet companion. 

Our converse, from her suffering bed 
To healthful themes of life she led : 
The out-door world of bud and bloom 
And light and sweetness filled her room. 

Yet evermore an underthought 
Of loss to come within us wrought, 
And all the while we felt the strain 
Of the strong will that conquered pain. 

God giveth quietness at last ! 
The common way that all have passed 
She went, with mortal yearnings fond, 
To fuller life and love beyond. 

Fold the rapt soul in your embrace, 
My clear ones ! Give the singer place 
To you, to her, — I know not where, — 
I lift the silence of a prayer. 

For only thus our own we find ; 
The gone before, the left behind, 
All mortal voices die between ; 
The unheard reaches the unseen. 

Again the blackbirds sing ; the streams 
Wake, laughing, from their winter dreams, 
And tremble in the April showers 
The tassels of the maple flowers. 

But not for her has spring renewed 
The sweet surprises of the wood ; 
And bird and flower are lost to her 
Who was their best interpreter ! 

What to shut eyes has God revealed '? 
What hear the ears that death has sealed ? 
What undreamed beauty passing show 
Requites the loss of all we know ? 

O silent land, to which we move, 
Enough if there alone be love, 
And mortal need can ne'er outgrow 
What it is waiting to bestow ! 

O white soul ! from that far-off shore 
Float some sweet song the waters o'er, 
Our faith confirm, our fears dispel. 
With the old voice we loved so well ! 



CHICAGO. 

Men said at vespers : " All is well ! " 
In one wild night the city fell ; 
Fell shrines of prayer and marts of gain 
Before the fiery hurricane. 

On threescore spires had sunset shone, 
Where ghastly sunrise looked on none. 
Men clasped each other's hands, and said : 
" The City of the West is dead ! " 

Brave hearts who fought, in slow retreat, 
The fiends of fire from street to street, 
Turned, powerless, to the blinding glare, 
The dumb defiance of despair. 



2G6 



MY BIRTHDAY. -THE BREWING OF SOMA. 



A sudden impulse thrilled each wire 

That signalled round that sea of fire ; 

Swift words of cheer, worm heart-throbs came ; 

In tears of pitj died the Same ! 

Prom East, from West, Fr South and North, 

The messages of hope shot forth, 
And, inidci neath t he severing wa\ e, 
The world, full banded, reached to save. 

Pair seemed t lie old ; hut fairer still 
Tin' new. t In' drear} void shall fill 
With dearei homes than those o'erthrown, 
For love shall lav each corner -tone. 

Rise, stricken city ! — Erom thee throw 
The ashen sackcloth of thj woe; 
And build, as to Amphion's strain, 
To solids ot cheer tin walls again ! 

How shrivelled in thy hot, distress 
The primal sin of selfishness ! 
How instant, rose, to take thy part, 
The angel m the human heart ! 

Ah ! not in vain the flames that tossed 
Above thy dreadful holocaust ; 
The Christ again has preached through thee 
The Gospel of Humanity ! 

Then lift once more thy towers on high, 
And fret with spires the western sky. 
To tell that God is yet with us, 
.And love is still miraculous ! 



MY BIRTHDAY. 

Beneath the m< light and the snow 

Lies dead my latest, \ ear ; 
The winter winds are wailing low 

Its dirges in my ear. 

I grieve not with the moaning wind 

As if a loss befell ; 
Before me, ev< n as behind, 

God is, and all is well ! 

His light shines on me from above, 
His low voice speaks within, — 

The patience of immortal love 
Outwearying mortal sin. 

Not mindless of the growing years 

Of care and loss and pain, 
Mv eyes are wet with thankful tears 
Foi blessings which remain. 

If dim the gold of life has grown, 

I will not count it dross. 
Nor turn from treasures still my own 

To sigh for lack and I 

The years no charm from Nature take : 

A s svi ' t her voices call. 
As beautiful her mornings break, 

A - fair her evenings fall. 

Love watches o'er my quiet ways, 
Kind voices speak my name. 

And lips that find it hard to praise 
Are slow. :,, blame. 

How softly ebb the tides of will ! 

How fields, once lost or won, 
Now liebehind green ami still 

Beneal h a levt I 



How hushed the hiss of party hate, 

Tie' clamor of the throng ! 
How old, harsh voices of debate 

Plow into rhyt liiuie son.' ! 

Methinks the spirit's temper grows 

Too soli in this still air; 
Somewhat the rest, fill heart foregoes 

Of needed watch and prayer. 

The baik by tempest vainly tossed 

May founder in the calm. 
And lie who braved the polar frost 
Faint by the isles id' balm. 

Better than .self-indulgent years 
The OUtflung heart of youth. 

Than pleasant songs in idle years 

The tumult of tile truth. 

Rest for the weary hands is good, 
And love for hearts that, pine, 

But let the manly habitude 
Of upright souls lie mine. 

Let winds that blow from heaven refresh, 

Dear Lord, t be languid air ; 
And let the weakness of the flesh 

Thy strength of spirit share. 

And, if the eye must fail of light, 

The ear forget to hear, 
Make clearer still the spirit's sight, 

More fine the inward ear ! 

Be near me in mine hours of need 

To soothe, or cheer, or warn, 
And down these slopes of sunset lead 

As up the hills of morn ! 



THE BREWING OF SOMA. 

" These libations hum d with milk have been prepared 
for Indra: offer Soma to the drinker of Soma." — VA- 

shista. Trans., by Max JlfLLEK. 

The fagots blazed, the caldron's smoke 

Up through the green wood curled ; 
"Bring honey from the hollow oak, 
Bring milky sap," the brewers spoke, 
In the childhood of the world. 

And brewed they well or brewed they ill, 

The priests thrust in their rods, 
first tasted, and then drank their fill, 
And shouted, with one voice and will, 

11 Behold the drink of gods ! " 

They drank, and lo! in heart and brain 

A new, glad life began ; 
The gray of hair grew young again, 
The sick man laughed away ins pain, 

The cripple leaped and ran. 

" Drink, mortals, what the gods have sent, 

Forget your long annoj ." 
So sang the priests, from tent to tent 
The Soma's sacred madness went, 

A storm of drunken joy. 

Then knew each rapt inebriate 

A winged and glorious birth, 
Soand upward, with strange joy elate, 
Beat, with dazed head, Varuna's gate, 

And, sobered, sank to earth. 



A WOMAN.— DISARMAMENT.— THE ROBIN. 



361 



The land with Soma's praises rang ; 
On Gihon's banks of shade 

lu in inns bhe dusky maidens 
In joy of life or mortal pang 

All men to Soma prayed. 

The morning twilight of the race 

Sends down these matin psalms-; 
And still with wondering eyes we trace 
The simple prayers to Soma's grace, 
That Vedic verse embalms. 

As m that child- world's early year, 

Bach aft^r age has striven 
I5v music, incense, vigils drear, 
And trance, to bring the skies more near, 

Or lift men up to heaven ! — 

Sum.' fever of the blood and brain, 

Some self-exalting spell, 
The scourger's keen delight of pain, 
The Dervish dance, the Orphic strain, 

The wild-haired Bacchant's yell, — 

The desert's hair-grown hermit sunk 

The saner brute below ; 
The naked Santon, hashish-drunk, 
The cloister madness of the monk, 

The fakir's torture-show ! 

And yet the past comes round again 

And new doth old fulfil ; 
In sensual transports wild as vain 
We brew in many a Christian fane 

The heathen Soma still ! 

Dear Lord and Father of mankind, 

Forgive our foolish \\ i 
Reclothe us in our rightful mind, 
In purer lives thy service find, 

In deeper reverence, praise. 

In simple trust like theirs who heard 

Beside the Syrian sea 
The gracious calling of the Lord, 
Let ns. like them, without a wind. 

Rise up and follow thee. 

( I Sabbath rest by Galilee ! 

O calm of hills above, 
Where Jesns knelt to share with thee 
Tlie silence' of eternity 

Interpreted by love ! 

With that deep hush subduing all 
Our words and works that drown 

The tender whisper ot thy call, 

As noiseless let thy blessing fall 
As fell thy manna down. 

Drop thy still dews of quietness, 

Till all our strivings cease ; 
Take from our souls the strain and stress, 
An 1 let our ordered lives confess 

The beauty ot thy peace. 

Breathe through the heats of our desire 

Thy coolness and thy halm ; 
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire; 

. through the earthquake, wind, and fire, 

O still, small voice of calm ! 



Still, through thy foul disguise, I see 

The rudimental purity, 

That, spite of change and loss, makes good 

Thy birthright-c] manhood; 

An inward loathing, deep, url 

A shame that is hal £ innocei 

Cast elf the grave-cli . sin ! 

Rise from the dust thou best m. 

As Mary rose at Jesus' •• 

Redeemed and white before the Lord! 

Reclaim thy lost soul ! In His name. 

Rise up, and break thy bonds of shame. 

Art weak? He's strong. Art fearful? 

The world's O'ercomer : " Be of cheer ! ' 

What lip shall judge when II 

Who dare to scorn the child he loves . 



Hear 



DISARMAMENT. 

"Put up the sword!" The voice of Christ 

once more 
Speaks, in the pauses of the cannon's roar, 
O'er fields of corn by fiery sickles reaped 

And left dry ashes ; over trenches b§aped 
With nameless dead; o'er cities starving slow 
Under a rain of fire ; through wards of woe 
Down which a groaning diapason runs 
From tortured brothers, husbands, lovers, son 
Of desolate women in their far-off homes. 
Waiting to hear the step that never comes ! 
O men and brothers ! let that voice lie heard. 
War fails, try peace ; put up the useless sword ! 

Fear not the end. There is a story told 

In Eastern tents, when autumn nights grow cold, 

And round the fire the Mongol shepherds sit 

With grave responses listening unto it : 

Once, on the errands <>i his mercy bent, 

Buddha, the holy and benevolent, 

Met a fell monster, huge and fierce of look, 

Whose awful voice the hills and forests shook. 

"O son of peace ! " the giant cried, " thy fate 

L sealed at last, and love shall yield to ! 

The unarmed Buddha looking, with no trace 

Of fear or anger, in the monster's fa 

In pity said : " Poor fiend, even thee I love." 

L i ! as he spake the sky-tall terror sank 

To hand-breadth size ; the huge abhorrence 

shrank 
Into the form and fashion of a dove ; 
And where the thunder of its rage was heard, 
Circling above him sweetly sang the bird : 
'■• Hate hath no harm for love," so ran the song ; 
"And peace unweaponed conquers every wrong ! " 



A WOMAN. 

0, dwakfed and wronged, and stained with ill, 
Behold ! thou art a woman still ! 
And, by that sacred name and dear, 
I bid thy better self appear. 



THE ROBIN. 

My old Welch neighbor over the wax- 
Crept slowly oitt in the sun of spring. 

Pushed from her ears the locks of gray, 
And listened to hear the robin sing. 

Her grandson, playing at marbles, stopped, 

And, cruel in sport as boys will 
Tossed a stone at the bird, who hopped 

From bough to bough in the apple-tree. 

"Nay!" said the grandmother; "have you not 
heard, 

My poor, bad boy ! of the fiery pit, 
And how, drop by drop, this merciful bird 

Carries the water that quenches it ? 



268 



THE SISTERS. -MARGUERITE. 



" He brings cool dew in his little bill, 
Anil lets it Ball on t be souls of sin : 

You can Bee the mark on bis red breast still 
Of tires that scorch as he. drops it m.- 

"My i ' Bron rhuddyn ! mj breast-burned 

bird, 
Singing so sweetlj from limb to limb, 

I I llil' Lord 

Is he who pities the lust Like Him ! " 

" Amen ! " I said bo i be beauti Eul mj bh ; 
" Sing, bird of < rod, in my hear! .-is well : 
iod i bought is .-i drop w hi n w ii li 
■: bell. 

•' Prayers of loi e Like rain drops fall, 

Teai s of pity are cooling dew, 
And dear to the heart of Our- Lord are all 

Who suffer like Jinn in the good they do ! 



THE SISTERS. 

raiE and Rhoda, sisters twain, 
VV ike m the night to'the sound of rain, 

The rush of wind, the ramp and roar 
Of great waves climbing a rocky shore. 

Annie rose up m her bed-gown white, 
Ami looked out into the storm and night. 

.,'" Hush, and hearken ! " she cried in fear, 
"Hearest thou nothing, sister dear V " 

" I hear the sea, and the plash of rain, 
And roar of the northeast hurricane. 

" (let-thee back to the bed so warm, 
No gwM comes of watching a storm. 

" What is it to thee, T fain would know, 
That -waves are roaring and wild winds blow ? 

" No lover of thine 's afloat to miss, 
The harbor-lights on a night like this." 

" But I heard a voice cry out my name. 
Up from the sea on the wind it came ! 

11 Twice and thrice have I heard it call. 
And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall ! " 

On her pillow the sister tossed her head. 
" Hall of the Heron is safe," she said. 

" In the tautest schooner that ever swam 
He rides at anchor in Anisquam. 

" And,' if in peril from swamping sea 

Or lee shore rocks, would he call on thee ? " 

But the girl heard only the wind and tide. 
And wringing her small white hands she cried : 

" () sister Rhoda, there 'a something wrong ; 
I hear it again, 30 loud and long. 

" ' Annie ! Annie ! ' I hear it call, 

And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall ! " 

Up sprang the elder, with eyes aflame, 
"Thou liest ! He never would call thy name ! 

" If he did, I would pray the wind and sea 
To keep him forever from thee and me ! " 



Then out of the sea blew a dreadful blast ; 
Like the cry of a dying man it passed. 

The \oung girl hushed on her Lips a groan. 
But through her tears a strange Light shone, — 

The solemn joy of her heart's release 
To own and cherish its Love in peace. 

•■ Dearest '. " she whispered, under breath, 
" Life was a lie, but true is death. 

"The Love I hid from myself away 
Shall crown me now in the light of day. 

" My ears shall never to wooer list, 
Never by lover my lips be kissed. 

"Sacred to thee am I henceforth, 
Thou in heaven and 1 on earth ! " 

She came and stood by her sister's bed : 
" Mall of the Heron is dead! " she said. 

"The wind and the waves their work have done, 
We shall see him no more beneath the sun. 

" Little will reck that heart of thine, 
It loved him not with a love like mine. 

"I, for his sake, were he but here, 
Could hem and 'broider thy bridal gear, 

"Though hands should tremble and eyes be wet, 
And stitch for stitch in my heart be set. 

"But now my soul with his soul 1 wed : 
Thine the living, and mine the dead ! " 



MARGUERITE. 

MASSACHUSETTS BAY, 1760. 

The robins sang in the orchard, the buds into 

blossoms grew ; 
Little of human sorrow the buds and the robins 

knew ! 

Sick, in an alien household, the poor French neu- 
tral lay ; 

Into her lonesome garret fell the light of the 
April day. 

Through the dusty window, curtained by the 

spider's warp and woof, 
On the loose-laid floor of hemlock, on oaken ribs 

of roof. 

The bedquilt's faded patchwork, the teacups on 

the stand, 
The wheel with flaxen tangle, as it dropped from 

her sick hand ! 

What to her was the song of the robin, or warm 

morning light, 
As she la\ in the trance of the dying, heedless ot 

sound or sight ? 

Done was the work of her hands, she had eaten 

her bitter bread ; 
The world of the alien people lay behind her dim 

and dead. 



MARGUERITE.— KING YOLMER AND ELSIE. 



209 



But her soul went back to its child-time ; she 

saw the mmi o'erflow 
With gold the basm of Minas, and set over Gas- 

perau ; 

The low, bare flats at ebb-tide, the rush of the 

sea at flood. 
Through inlet and creek and river, from dike to 

upland wood ; 

The gulls in the red of morning, the fish-hawk's 

rise and fall, 
The drift of the fog in moonshine, over the dark 

coast-wall. 

S i< ■ saw the face of her mother, she heard the 

song she sang ; 
And far off, faintly, slowly, the bell for vespers 

rang ! 

By her bed the hard-faced mistress sat, smooth- 
ing the wrinkled sheet. 

Peering into the face, so helpless, and feeling the 
ice-cold f< 

With a vague remorse atoning for her greed and 

long abuse, 
By care no Longer heeded and pity too late for 

use. 

Up the stairs of the garret softly the son of the 

mistress stepped. 
Leaned over the head-board, covering his face 

with his hands, and wept. 

Outspake the mother, who watched him sharply, 

with brow a-frown : 
" What ! love you the Papist, the beggar, the 

charge of the town ? " 

" Be she Papist or beggar who lies here, I know 

and Gfod knows 
I love her, and fain would go with her wherever 

she gi 

" O mother ! that sweet face came pleading, for 

love so athirst. 
You saw but the town-charge ; I knew her God's 

angel at first." 

Shaking her gray head, the mistress hushed down 

a bitter cry ; 
And awed by the silence and shadow of death 

drawing nigh, 

She murmured a psalm of the Bible ; but closer 

the young girl pressed, 
With the last of her life in her fingers, the cross 

to her breast. 

" My son, come away," cried the mother, her 

voice cruel grown. 
"She is joined to her idols, like Ephraim ; let 

her alone ! " 

But lie knelt with his hand on her forehead, his 

lips to her ear. 
And he called back the soul that was passing : 

" Marguerite, do you hear ?" 

She paused on the threshold of Heaven ; love, 
pity, surprise, 

Wistful, tender, lit up for an instant the cloud of 
her eyes. 

With his heart on his lips he kissed her, but 

never her cheek grew red, 
And the words the living long for he spake in the 
of the dead. 



And the robins sang in the orchard, where buds 

to blossoms grew ; 
Of the folded hands and the still face never the 

robins knew ! 



KING VOLMER AND ELSIE. 

AFTEK THE DANISH OF CHRISTIAN WINTER. 

Where, over heathen doom-rings and gray stones 

of the Horg, 
In its little Christian city stands the church of 

Vordingborg, 

In merry mood King Volmer sat, forgetful of his 

power, 
As idle as the Goose of Gold that brooded on his 

tower. 

Out spake the King to Heurik, his young and 

faithful squire : 
" Dar'st trust thy little Elsie, the maid of thy 

desire ? " 
" Of all the men in Denmark she loveth only 

me : 
As true to me is Elsie as thy Lily is to thee. " 

Loud laughed the king ; " To-morrow shall bring 

another day,* 
When I myself will test her ; she will not say 

me nay." 
Thereat the lords and gallants, that round about 

him stood, 
Wagged all their heads in concert and smiled as 

courtiers should. 

The gray lark sings o'er Vordingborg, and on the 

ancient town 
From the tall tower of Valdemar the Golden 

Goose looks down : 
The yellow grain is waving in the pleasant wind 

of morn, 
The wood resounds with cry of hounds and blare 

of hunter's horn. 

In the garden of her father little Elsie sits and 

spins, 
And, singing with the early birds, her daily task 

begins. 
Gay tulips bloom and sweet mint curls around 

her garden-bower. 
But she is sweeter than the mint and fairer than 

the flower. 

About her form her kirtle blue clings lovingly, 
and, white 

As snow, her loose sleeves only leave her small, 
round wrists in sight ; 

Below the modest petticoat can only half con- 
ceal 

The motion of the lightest foot that ever turned 
a wheel. 

The cat sits purring at her side, bees hum in 

sunshine warm ; 
But, look ! she starts, she lifts her face, she 

shades it with her arm. 
And, hark ! a train of horsemen, with sound of 

dog and horn, 
Come leaping o'er the ditches, come trampling 

down the corn ! 



* A common saying of Valdemar ; hence his sobriquet, 
Alter day. 



270 



KING VOLMER AND ELSIE. 



Merrily rang the bridle-reins, and scarf and plume " Well, Vadmal will I wear for you," the rider 



si reamed gay, 



gaj I-. spoke, 



As Eas1 beside bei father's gate the riders held " And on the Lord's high altar I '11 lay my scarlet 



ill. ii' way ; 



cloak.' 



And one was brave in scarlet cloak, with golden " lint, mark," she said, "no stately horse my 



spur on heel, 
And, as he checked bis foaming steed, tin- maiden 
eked her wheel. 

" All hail among thy roses, the fairest rose to 
me ' 



peasant love must- ride, 
A yoke of Bteers before the plough is all that he 
must guide.'' 

The knight looked down upon his steed : " Well, 
let him wander tin- ; 



For wear) months in secret my heart- has longed No other man must ride the horse that has been 



for thee ! " 



backed by me. 



What noble knight was this? What words for Henceforth I'll tread the furrow and to my oxen 



modes! maiden's ear ? 



talk, 



She dropped a lowly courtesy of bashfulness and If only little Elsie beside my plough will walk." 
fear. 



She lifted up her spinning-wheel ; she fain would 

seek the d00J . 

Trembling Lnevery limb, her cheek with blushes 

crimsoned oler. 
" Nay, fear me not," the rider said, "I offer 

beai fc and hand, 

Bear witness these good Danish knights who 
round about mo stand. 

" I grant you time to think of this, to answer as 

you may, 
For to-morrow, little- Elsie, shall bring another 

day." 
He spake the old phrase slyly as, glancing round 

his train, 
He saw his merry followers seek to hide their 

smiles in vain. 

" The snow of pearls I'll scatter in your curls of 

i hair, a 

I'll line with furs the velvet of the kirtle that 

you wear ; 
All precious gems shall twine your neck; and in 

a chariot gay 
You shall ride, my little Elsie, behind four steeds 

of gray. 

" And harps shall sound, and flutes shall play, 

ami brazen lamps shall glow; 
On marble floors your feet shall weave the dances 

to and fro. 
At frosty eventide for us the blazing hearth shall 

shine, 
While, at our ease, we play at draughts, and 

drink the blood-red wine." 

Then Elsie raised her head and met her wooer 
face to face ; 

' ih smile shone in her eye and on her lip 
and place. 
Back from her low white forehead the curls of 

gold she bhr< w, 
And lifted up her eyes to his steady and clear and 
blue. 

" I am a lowly peasant, and you a gallant knight; 



"You must take from out your cellar cask of 
wine and flask and can ; 

The homely mead 1 brew you may serve a peas- 
ant-man." 

" Most willingly, fair Elsie, I '11 drink that mead 
of thine, 

And leave my minstrel's thirsty throat to drain 
my generous wine." 

"Now break your shield asunder, and shatter 
sign and boss, 

Unmeet for peasant-wedded arms, your knightly 
knee across. 

And pull me down your castle from top to base- 
ment wall, 

And let your plough trace furrows in the ruins of 
your hall ! " 

Then smiled he with a lofty pride; right well at 

last he knew 
The maiden of the spinning-wheel was to her 

troth-plight true. 
"Ah, roguish little Elsie ! you act your part full 

well : 
You know that I must bear my shield and in my 

castle dwell ! 

" The lions ramping on that shield between the 

hearts aflame 
Keep watch o'er Denmark's honor, and guard her 

ancient name. 
For know that I am Volmer ; I dwell in yonder 

towers, 
Who ploughs them ploughs up Denmark, this 

goodly home of ours ! 

" I tempt no more, fair Elsie ! your heart I know 

is true ; 
Would God that all our maidens were good and 

pure as you ! 
Well have you pleased your monarch, and he 

shall well repay ; 
God's peace ! Farewell ! To-morrow will bring 

another day ! " 

He lifted up his bridle hand, he spurred his good 
steed then, 



I will not trust a love that soon may cool and And like a whirl-blast swept away with all his 



turn to slight. 



gallant men. 



i would wed me henceforth be a peasant, The steel hoofs beat the rocky path ; again on 



i lord ; 



winds of morn 



1 hid you bang upon the wall your tried and trusty The wood resounds with cry of hounds and blare 



sword.' 



of hunter's horn. 



" To please you, Elsie, I will lay keen Dynadcl "Thou true and ever faithful!" the listening 



away. 



Henrik cried : 



And in its place will swing the scythe and mow And, leaping o'er the green hedge, he stood by 

your father's hay." 
" Nay, but your gallant scarlet cloak my '-yes 

can never bear ; 
A Vadmal coat, so plain and gray, is all that you 

must wear." 



Elsie's side. 
None saw the fond embracing, save, shining from 

afar, 
The Golden Goose that watched them from the 

tower of Valdemar. 



THE THREE BELLS.- HAZEL BLOSSOMS. 



271 



O darling girls of Denmark ! of all the flowers 

that throng 
Her vales of spring the fairest, I sing for you my 

song. 
No praise as yours so bravely rewards the singer's 

skill; 
Thank God ! of maids like Elsie the land has 

plenty still ! 



THE THREE BELLS. 

Beneath the low-hung night cloud 
That raked her splintering mast 

The good ship settled slowly, 
The cruel leak gained fast. 

Over the awful ocean 

Her signal guns pealed out. 

Dear God ! was that thy answer 
From the horror round about ? 

A voice came down the wdd wind, 
" Ho ! ship ahoy ! " its cry : 

" Our stout Three Bells of Glasgow 
Shall lay till daylight by ! " 

Hour after hour crept slowly. 
Yet on the heaving swells 

Tossed up and down the ship-lights, 
The lights of the Three Bells ! 



And ship to ship made signals, 
Man answered back to man, 

While oft, to chei r and hearten, 
The Three Bells nearer ran; 

And the captain from her taffrail 
Sent down his hopeful cry. 

" Take heart I Hold on ! " he shouted, 
"The Three Bells shall lay by ! " 

All night across the waters 
The tossing lights shone clear ; 

All night from reeling taffrail 
The Three Bells sent her cheer. 

And when the dreary watches 
Of storm and darkness passed, 

Just as the wreck lurched under, 
All souls were saved at last. 



Sail on, Three Bells, forever, 
In grateful memory sail ! 

Ring on, Three Bells of rescue, 
Above the wave and gale ! 

Type of the Love eternal, 
Repeat the Master's cry, 

As tossing through our darkness 
The lights of God draw nigh ! 



HAZEL BLOSSOMS, 



NOTE. 

I have ventured, in compliance with the desire of dear 
friends of my beloved sister Elizabeth H. Whittier, 
o this little volume the few poetical pieces which 
she left behi nil her. As sin- was very distrustful of her 
own powers, and altogether without ambition for literary 
distinction, she shunned everything like publicity, and 
found far greater happiness in generous appreciation of 
i' friend- than in the cultivation of her 
own. Yet it has always seemed to me, that had her 
health, sense of duty and fitness, and her extreme self- 
te might have taken a high place 
among lyrical singers. These poems, with perhapstwb 
or three exceptions, afford bat slight indications of the 
inward lite of the writer, who had an almost morbid 
dread of spiritual and intellectual egotism, or of her ten- 
dernessof symp ened mirthfulness, and pleas- 

ud fancy, when her shy, beautiful 
-oui opened like a flower in the warmth of social com- 
munion. In the I i on lir. Kane her friends will see 
something of her tine individuality, — the rare mingling 
of delicacy and intensity of feeling which made her dear 
to them. This little poem reached Cuba while the greai 
explorer lay on his death-bed, and we are told that lie 
listened with while it was read to him by 

his tie. titer. 

1 am tempted to say more, but I write us under the ej e 

of her who. while with us, shrank with painful de ca 

tion from tie- p I lion of performances which 

seemed so far below her ideal of excellence. To those 
who best knew her, the beloved circle of her intimate 
friends. L dedicate this slight memorial. 

J. U. W. 
Ajiesbuey, 9th mo., 187-4. 



The summer warmth has left the sky, 
The summer songs have died away ; 
And, withered, in the footpaths lie 
The fallen leaves, but yesterday 
With ruby and with topaz gay. 

The grass is browning on the hills; 
No pale, belated flowers recall 
The astral fringes of the rills, 
And drearily the dead vines fall, 
Frost-blackened, from the roadside wall. 

Yet, through the gray .and sombre wood, 
Against the dusk of fir and pine, 
Last of their floral sisterhood, 
The hazel's yellow blossoms shine, 
The tawny gold of Afxic's mine ! 

Small beauty hath my unsung flower, 
For spring to own or summer hail; 
But, in the season's saddest hour, 
To skies that weep and winds that wail 
Its glad surprisals never fail. 

O days grown cold ! O life grown old ! 
No rose of June may bloom again; 
But, like the hazel's twisted gold, 
Through early frost and latter rain 
Shall hints of summer-time remain. 



272 



SUMNER. 




•'And withered in the footpaths lie 
The fallen leaves, but yesterday 
With ruby and with topaz green." 



And as within the hazel's bough 

A gift of mystic virtue dwells, 

That points to golden ores below, 

And in dry desert places tells 

Where flow unseen the cool, sweet wells, 

So, in the wise Diviner's hand, 
Be mine the hazel's grateful part 
To feel, beneath a thirsty land, 
The living waters thrill and start, 
The beating of the rivulet's heart ! 

Sufficeth me the gift to light 
With latest bloom the dark, cold days ; 
To call some hidden spring to sight 
That, in these dry and dusty ways, 
Shall sing its pleasant song of praise. 

O Love ! the hazel-wand may fail, 
But thou canst lend the surer spell, 
That, passing over Baca's vale, 
Repeats the old-time miracle, 
And makes the desert-land a well. 



SUMNER. 

il T am not one who has disgraced beauty of sentiment 
by deformity of conduct, or the maxims of a freeman by 
the actions of a slave : but, by the grace of God, I have 
kept my life unsullied." — Milton's Vefenr-e of the Peo- 
ple of England. 

O Mother State ! — the winds of March 
Blew chill o'er Auburn's Field of God, 

Where, slow, beneath a leaden arch 
Of sky, thy mourning children trod. 

And now, with all thy woods in leaf, 
Thy fields in flower, beside thy dead 

Thou sittest, in thy robes of grief, 
A Rachel yet uncomf orted ! 



And once again the organ swells, 

( >nce more the flag is half-way hung, 

And yet again the mournful bells 
In all thy steeple-towers are rung. 

And I, obedient to thy will, 

Have come a simple wreath to lay, 

Superfluous, on a grave that still 
Is sweet with all the flowers of May. 

I take, with awe, the task assigned ; 

It may be that my friend might miss, 
In his new sphere of heart and mind, 

Some token from my hand in this. 

By many a tender memory moved, 
Along the past my thought I send ; 

The record of the cause he loved 
Is the best lecord of its friend. 

No trumpet sounded in his ear, 

He saw not Sinai's cloud and flame, 

But never yet to Hebrew seer 
A clearer voice of duty came. 

God said : " Break thou these yokes ; undo 
These heavy burdens. 1 ordain 

A work to last thy whole life through, 
A ministry of strife and pain. 

"Forego thy dreams of lettered case, 
Put thou the scholar's promise by, 

The rights of man are more than these." 
He heard, and answered : "Here am I ! " 

He set his face against the blast, 
His feet against the flinty shard, 

Till the hard service grew, at last, 
Its own exceeding great reward. 

Lifted like Saul's above the crowd, 
Upon his kingly forehead fell 



SUMNER. 



273 



The first, sharp bolt of Slavery's cloud, 
Launched at the truth he urged so well. 

Ah ! never yet, at rack or stake. 

Was sorer loss made Freedom's gain, 

Than his, who suffered for her sake 
The beak-torn Titan's lingering pain ! 

The fixed star of his faith, through all 
Loss, doubt, and peril, shone the same ; 

As through a night of storm, some tall, 
Strong lighthouse lifts its steady flame. 

Beyond the dust and smoke he saw 

The sheaves of freedom's large increase, 

The holy fanes of equal law, 
The New Jerusalem of peace. 

The weak might fear, th i worldling mock, 
The faint and blind of heart regret ; 

All knew at last th' eternal rock 
On which his forward feet were set. 

The subtlest scheme of compromise 

Was folly to his purpose boh 1 ; 
The strongest mesh of party lies 

Weak to the simplest truth he told. 

One language held his heart and lip, 
Straight onward to his goal he trod, 

And proved the highest statesmanship 
Obedience to the voice of God. 

No wail was in his voice, — none heard, 

When treason's storm-cloud blackest grew, 

The weakness of a doubtful word ; 
His duty, and the end, he knew. 

The first to smite, the first to spare ; 

When once the hostile ensigns fell, 
He stretched out hands of generous care 

To lift the foe he fought so well. 

For there was nothing base or small 
Or craven in his soul's broad plan ; 

Forgiving all things personal, 
He hated only wrong to man. 

The old traditions of his State, 

The memories of her great and good, 

Took from his life a fresher date, 
And in himself embodied stood. 

How felt the greed of gold and place, 

The venal crew that schemed and planned, 

The fine scorn of that haughty face. 
The spurning of that bribeless hand ! 

11 than Rome's tribunes statelier 

He wore his senatorial robe, 
His lofty port was all for her, 

The one dear spot on all the globe. 

If to the master's plea he gave 

The vast contempt his manhood felt, 

He saw a brother in the slave, — 
With man as equal man he dealt. 

Proud was he ''. If his presence kept 
Its grandeur wheresoe'er he trod, 

As if from Plutarch's gallery stepped 
The hero and the demi-god, 

None failed, at least, to reach his ear. 
Nor want nor woe appealed in vain ; 

The homesick soldier knew his cheer, 
And blessed him from his ward of pain. 

18 



Safely his dearest friends may own 
The slight defects he never hid, 

The surface-blemish in the stone 
Of the tall, stately pyramid. 

Suffice it that he never brought 
His conscience to the public mart ; 

But lived himself the truth he taught, 
White-souled, clean-handed, pure of heart. 

What if he felt the natural pride 

Of power in noble use, too true 
With thin humilities to hide 

The work he did, the lore he knew ? 

Was he not just V Was any wronged 

By that assured self-estimate V 
He took but what to him belonged, 

Unenvious of another's state. 

Well might he heed the words he spake, 
And scan with care the written page 

Through which he still shall warm and wake 
The hearts of men from age to age. 

Ah ! who shall blame him now because 
He solaced thus his hours of pain ! 

Should not the o'erworn thresher pause, 
And hold to light his golden grain ? 

No sense of humor dropped its oil 
On the hard ways his purpose went ; 

Small play of fancy lightened toil ; 
He spake alone the thing he meant. 

He loved his books, the Art that hints 
A beauty veiled behind its own. 

The graver's line, the pencil's tints, 
The chisel's shape evoked from stone. 

He cherished, void of selfish ends, 

The social courtesies that bless 
And sweeten life, and loved his friends 

With most unworldly tenderness. 

But still his tired eyes rarely learned 
The glad relief by Nature brought ; 

Her mountain ranges never turned 
His current of persistent thought, 

The sea rolled chorus to his speech 

Three-banked like Latinm's tall trireme, 

With laboring oars ; the grove and beach 
Were Forum and the Academe. 

The sensuous joy from all things fair 
His strenuous bent of soul repressed, 

And left from youth to silvered hair 
Few hours for pleasure, none for rest. 

For all his life was poor without, 
O Nature, make the last amends ! 

Train all thy flowers his grave about, 

And make thy singing-birds his friends ! 

Revive again, thou summer rain, 

The broken turf upon his bid ! 
Breathe, summer wind, thy teuderest strain 

Of low, sweet music overhead ! 

With calm and beauty symbolize 
The peace which follows long annoy, 

And lend our earth-bent, mourning eyes 
Some hint of his diviner joy. 

For safe with right and truth he is, 
As < ;od lives he must live alway ; 

There is no end for souls like his, 
No night for children of the day ! 






THE PRAYER OF AGASSI/, 



Nor '■••int nor poor Bolicitudes 
Made weak his life's greal argument; 

Small Leisure his for frames and moods 
\\ ho followed I >utj w here she went. 

The broad, Eair fields of God be saw 
l',r\ on - narrow bound ; 

The 1 1111 as be moulded into law 
In Christ's beatitudes he found. 

Bis State oraft was the Golden Rule, 
His right of vote a sacred trust; 

( !1« a r, o\ ei threat and ridicule, 
All heard his challenge : " Is it just?" 

\imI when the hour supreme had come, 
Not for himself a bhought he gave; 

In that last, pang of martyrdom, 
lli^ oar.' was tor the half-freed slave. 

N< ; vainlj dusky hands upbore, 

In prayer, the passing soul to heaven 
Whose mercy to 1 lis suffering poor 

Was sen ti >• to i In- Master gh en. 

Long shall the good State's annals tell, 
I hi children's children ion- be taught, 

How, [iraised or blamed, he guarded well 
The trust he neither shunned nor sought. 

If for one moment turned t hy face, 
() Mother, from thy son, not long 

He waited calmly in his place 

The sure remorse which follows wrong. 

jiven be the State he kn 
The one brief lapse, the single blot,; 
Forgotten be the stain removed, 
Her righted record shows it not ! 

Tlie lifted sword above her shield 

With jealous care shall guard his fame ; 

The pine-tree on her ancient field 
To all the winds shall speak his name. 

The marble image of her son 

Her loving hands shall yearly crown, 

And from her pictured Pantheon 
His grand, majestic face look down. 

() State, so passing rich before. 

Who now shall doubt thy highest claim? 
The world that counts thy jewels o'er 

Shall longest pause at Sumner's name ! 



THE PRAYER OF AGASSIZ. 

On the isle of Penikese, 
Ringed about by sapphire seas, 

es salt and cool. 
Stood the Master with his school. 
Ov< r sails that not in vain 
Wooed (he west-wind's steady strain, 
Line of coast that low and far 
Stretched its undulating bar, 
Wings aslant along the rim 
Of the waves they stooped to skim, 

and isle and -listening bay, 
Fell 1 . ! : i la j . 

Said the Master to the youth : 
" We have come in search of truth, 
Trying with uncertain kej 
Dooi i ■;. dooi of mystery ; 
W. arc reaching, through His laws, 
To the garment-hem of Cause, ■ 



Him, the endless, unbegun, 
The CJnnamable. the < me 

Light, of all our light the Source, 
Life of life, and Force of force. 
As v, lth linger,-, of the blind, 

We are groping here to find 

What the hieroglyphics mean 

Of the Unseen in the seen. 

What the Thought which underlies 

Nature's masking and disguise, 

What it is that hides bem ath 

Hlight and bloom and birth and death. 

By past efforts unavailing, 

1 >0ubt and error. loSB and tailing, 
Of our weakness made aware. 
On the threshold of our task 
Let us light and guidance a-k. 
Let us pause in silent prayer ! " 

Then the Master in his place 
Lowed his head a little space. 
And the leaves by soft airs stirred, 
Lapse of wave and cry of bird 
Left the solemn hush unbroken 
Of that wordless prayer unspoken, 
While its wish, on earth unsaid, 
Rose to heaven interpreted. 
As, in life's Lest hours, we hear 
By the spirit's liner ear 
His low voice within us, thus 
The All-Father heaivth us ; 
And his holy ear we pain 
With our noisy words and vain. 
Not for Him our violence 
Storming at the gates of sense, 
His the primal language, his 
The eternal silences ! 

Even the careless heart was moved, 
And the doubting gave assent, 
With a gesture reverent, 
To the Master well-beloved. 
As thin mists are glorified 
By the light they cannot hide. 
All who gazed upon him saw, 
Through its veil of tender awe, 
How his face was still uplit 
By the old sweet look of it, 
Hopeful, trustful, full of cheer. 
And the love that casts out fear. 
Who the secret may declare 
Of that brief, imuttered prayer ? 
Did the shade before him come 
Of th' inevitable doom, 
Of the end of earth so near, 
And Eternity's new year? 

In the lap of sheltering seas 
Rests the isle of Penikese ; 
But the lord of the domain 
Comes not to his own again : 
Where the eyes that follow fail, 
On a vaster sea his sail 
Drifts beyond our beck and hail. 
Other lips within its bound 
Shall the laws of life expound ; 
Other eyes from rock and shell 
Read the world's old riddles well : 
But when breezes light and bland 
Blow from Summer's blossomed land, 
When the air is glad with wings, 
And the blithe song-sparrow sings, 
Many an eye with his still face 
Shall the living ones displace, 
Many an ear the word shall seek 
He alone could fitly speak. 
And one name forevermore 
Shall be uttered o'er and o'er 
By the waves that kiss the shore, 



THE FRIEND'S BURIAL.— JOHN UNDERHILL. 



27.-, 



By the curlew's whistle sent 
Down the cool, sea-scente<l air ; 
In all voices known to her, 
Nature owns her worshipper, 
Half in triumph, half lament. 
Thither Love shall tearful turn, 
Friendship pause uncovered there. 
Ami the wisest reverence learn 
From the Master's silent prayer. 



THE FRIEND'S BURIAL. 

Mv thoughts are all in yonder town, 
Where, wept by many tears, 

To-day my mother's friend lays down 
The burden of her years. 

True as in life, no poor disguise 

Of death with her is seen, 
And on her simple casket lies 

No wreath of bloom and green. 

O, not for her the florist's art, 
The mocking weeds of wo •, 

Dear memories in each mourner's heart 
Like heaven's white lilies blow. 

And all about the softening air 
Of new-born sweetness tells, 

And the ungathered May-flowers wear 
The tints of ocean shells. 

' The old, assuring miracle 

Is fresh as heretofore ; 
And earth takes up its parable 

Of life from death once more. 

Here organ-swell and church-bell toll 

Methinks but discord were, — 
The prayerful silence of the soul 
Is beet befitting her. 

No sound should break the quietude 

Alike of earth and sky ; — 
wandering wind in Seabrook wood, 

Breathe but a half -heard sigh ! 

Sing softly, spring-bird, for her sake ; 

And thou not distant sea, 
Lapse lightly as if Jesus spake, 

And thou wert Galil 

For all her quiet life flowed on 
As meadow streamlets flow, 

Wh re fresher green reveals alone 
The noiseless ways they go. 

From her loved place of prayer I see 
The plain-roljed mourners pass. 

With slow feet treading reverently 
The graveyard's springing grass. 

Make room, O mourning ones, for me, 
Where, like the friends of Paul, 

That you no more her face shall see 
You sorrow most of all. 

Her path shall brighten more and more 

Unto the perfect day ; 
She cannot fail of peace who bore 

Such peace with her away. 

O sweet, calm face that seemed to wear 

The look of sins forgiven ! 
O voice of prayer that seemed to bear 

Our own needs up to heaven ! 



How reverent in our midst she stood, 

Or knelt in grateful pn 
What grace ol Christian womanhood 

Was in her household ways I 

For still her holy living meant 

No duty left undone ; 
The heavenly and the human blent 

Their kindred loves in one. 

And if her life small leisure found 

For feasting ear and eye, 
And Pleasure, on her daily round, 

She passed unpausing by, 

Yet with her went a secret sense 

Of all things sweet and fair, 
And Beauty's gracious providence 

Refreshed her unaware. 

She kept her line of rectitude 
With love's unconscious ease; 

Her kindly instincts understood 
All gentle court. 

An inborn charm of graciousness 
Made sweet her smile and tone, 

And glorified her farm-wife dress 
With beauty not its own. 

The dear Lord's best interpreters 

Are humble human souls ; 
The Gospel of a life like hers 

Is more than books or scrolls. 

From scheme and creed the light goes out, 

The saintly fact sur\ i 
The blessed Master none can doubt 

Revealed in holy lives. 



JOHN UNDERHILL. 

A SCORE of years had come and gone 
Since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth stone, 
When Captain Underbill, bearing scars 
From Indian ambush and Flemish wars. 
Left three-hilled Boston and wandered down, 
East by north, to Cocheco town. 

With Vane the younger, in counsel sweet 

He had sat at Anna Hutchinson's B 

And, when the bolt of banishment fell 

On the head of his saintly oracle, 

He had shared her ill as her good report, 

And braved the wrath of the General Court. 

He shook from his feet as he rode away 

The dust of the Massachusetts Bay. 

The world might bless and the world might ban, 

What did it matter the perfect man, 

To whom the freedom of earth was given, 

Proof against sin, and sure of heaven '? 

He cheered his heart as he rode along 
With screed of Scripture and holy song. 
Or thought how he rode with his lances free 
By the Lower Rhine and the Zuyder-Zee, 
Till his wood-path grew to a trodden road, 
And Hilton Point in the distance showed. 

He saw the church with the block-house nigh, 
The two fair rivers, the flakes thereby. 
And, tacking to windward., low and crank, 
The little shallop from Strawberry Bank : 
And he rose in his stirrups and looked abroad 
Over laud and water, and praised the Lord. 



276 



IN QUEST. 



Goodly and stately and grave to see, 

Into the dealing's space rode be, 

With the Bun on the hilt of his sword in sheath, 

Ami his silver buckles and spurs beneath, 

And the settlers welcomed linn, one and all, 

Prom swift Quampeagan to Gonic Pali 

And be said bo the elders : " Lo, I come 
As thi- waj seemed open to seek a home. 
Somewhal the Lord hath wrought by my hands 
In the Narragansett and Netherlands, 
And if here ye have work for a Christian man, 
I will tarry, and serve ye as best I can. 

" I boast nut ill' gifts, but fain would own 
Tin' wonderful favor (hid hath shown, 
The special mercy vouchsafed one day 
On the shore of Narragansett Bay, 
As I sat, with my pipe from the camp aside, 
And mused like Isaac at eventide. 

" A sudden sweetness of peace I found, 
A garment of gladness wrapped me round ; 
I felt from the law of works released, 
The strife of the flesh and spirit ceased, 
My faith to a full assurance grew, 
And all I had hoped for myself I knew. 

" Now, as God appointeth, I keep my way, 
I shall not stumble, I shall not stray ; 
He hath taken away my fig-leaf dress, 
1 wear the robe of his righteousness ; 
And the shafts of Satan no more avail 
Than Pequot arrows on Christian mail." 

" Tarry with us," the settlers cried, 
" Thou man of God, as our ruler and guide." 
And Captain Underbill bowed his head. 
" The will of the Lord be done ! " he said. 
And the morrow beheld him sitting down 
In the ruler's seat in Cocheco town. 

And he judged therein as a just man should ; 
His words were wise and his rule was good ; 
He coveted not his neighbor's land, 
From the holding of bribe she shook his hand 
And through the camps of the heathen ran 
A wholesome fear of the valiant man. 

But the heart is deceitful, the good Book saith, 
And life hath ever a savor of death. 
Through hymns of triumph the tempter calls, 
And whoso thinketh he standeth falls: 
Alas ! ere their round the seasons ran, 
There was grief in the soul of the saintly man. 

The tempter's arrows that rarely fail 
Had found the joints of his spiritual mail ; 
And men took note of his gloomy air, 
The shame in his eye, the halt in his prayer, 
The signs of a battle lost within, 
The pain of a soul in the coils of sin. 

Then a whisper of scandal linked his name 
With broken vows and a life of blame ; 
And the people looked askance on him 
As he walked among them sullen and grim, 
111 at ease, and bitter of word, 
And prompt of quarrel with hand or sword. 

None knew how, with prayer and fasting still, 
He strove in the bonds of his evil will ; 
But he shook himself like Samson at length, 
And girded anew his loins of strength, 
And bade the crier go up and down 
And call together the wondering town 

Jeer and murmur and shaking of hind 
Ceased as he rose in his place and said 



" Men, brethren, and fathers, well ye know 
How 1 came among you a \ ear ago, 
Strong in the faith that in\ soul was frei d 
From sin of feeling, or thought, or deed. 

" I have sinned, I own it with grief and shame, 

But not with a, lie on my lips i came. 

In my blindness I verily thought my hear 

Sw.pt ami garnished in everj part. 

He chargeth His angels with folly ; He sees 

The heavens unclean. Was I more than thesi ' 

" I urge no plea. At your feet I lay 
The trust you gave me, and go my way. 
Hate me or pity me, as you will, 
The Lord wdl have mercy on sinners still ; 
And 1, who am chiefest, say to all, 
Watch and pray, lest ye also fall" 

No voice made answer : a sob so low- 
That only his quickened ear could know 
Smote his heart with a hitter pain, 
As into the I'oivst he code again. 
And the veil of its oaken leaves shut down 
On his latest glimpse of Cocheco town. 

Crystal clear on the man of sin 
The streams flashed up, and the sky shone in ; 
On his cheek of fever the cool wind Mew, 
The leaves dropped on him their tears of dew, 
And angels of God, in the pure sweet guise 
Of flowers, looked on him with sad surprise. 

Was his ear at fault that brook and breeze 
Sang in their saddest of minor keys ? 
What was it the mournful wood-thrush said ? 
What whispered the pine-trees overhead V 
Did he hear the Voice on his lonely way 
That Adam heard in the cool of day ? 

Into the desert alone rode he, 

Alone with the Infinite Purity ; 

And, bowing his soul to its tender rebuke, 

As Peter did to the Master's look, 

He measured his path with prayers o#pain 

For peace with God and nature again. 

And in after years to Cocheco came 
The bruit of a once familiar name ; 
[ How among the Dutch of New Netherlands, 
From wild Daflskamer to Haarlem sands, 
A penitent soldier preached the Word, 
And smote the heathen with Gideon's sword ! 

j And the heart of Boston was glad to hear 
How he harried the foe on the long frontier, 
And heaped on the land against him barred 

j The coals of his generous watch and ward. 

' Frailest and bravest ! the Bay State still 
Counts with her worthies John Underbill. 



IN QUEST. 

Have I not voyaged, friend beloved, with thee 
On the great waters of the unsounded sea, 
Momently listening with suspended oar 
For the low rote of waves upon a shore 
Changeless as heaven, where never fog-cloud 

drifts 
Over its windless woods, nor mirage lifts 
Tin' steadfast hills; where never birds of doubt 
Sing to mislead, and every dream dies out, 
And the dark riddles which perplex us here 
In the sharp solvent of itfe light are clear V 



A SEA DREAM. 



277 



Thou knowest how vain our quest ; how, soon ot 

late, 
The baffling tides and circles of debat< 
Swept back our bark ilnto i*s starting-place, 
Where, looking forth upon th - blank, gray space, 
And round about us seeing, with sad eyes. 
The same old difficult hills and cloud-cold skies, 
We said : " This outward starch availethnot 
T<> find Him. He is farther than we thought, 
Or, haply, nearer. To this very spot 
Whereon \ve wait, this commonplace of home, 
As to the well of Jacob, He may come 
And tell us all things." As 1 listened there, 
Through the expectant silences of prayer, 
Somewhat I scenic I to hear, which hath to me 
Been tope, strength, comfort, and I give it thee. 

"The riddle of the world is understood 

Only by him who feels that God is good, 

As only he can feel who makes his love 

The ladder of his faith, and climbs above 

On th' rounds of his best instincts ; draws no line 

Between mere human goodness and divine, 

But, judging God by what in him is best, 

With a child's trust leans on a Father's breast, 

And hears unmoved the old creeds babble still 

Of kingly power and dread caprice of will, 

Chary of blessing, prodigal of curse, 

The pitiless doomsman of the universe. 

Can Hatred ask for love ? Can Selfishness 

Invite to self-denial ? Is He less 

Than man in kindly dealing? Can He break 

His own great law of fatherhood, forsake 

And curse His children? Not for earth 

leaven 
Can separate tables of the law be given. 
No rule can bud which He himself denies; 
The truths of time are not eternal lies." 
So heard I ; and the chaos round me spread 
To light and order grew; and, " Lord," I said, 
" Our sins are our tormentors, worst of all 
Felt in distrustful shame that dares not call 
Upon Thee as our Father. We have set 
A strange god up, but Thou remainest yet. 
All that I feel of pity Thou hast known 
Before I was ; my best is all Thy own. 
From Thy great heart of goodness mine but drew 
Wishes and prayers ; but Thou, O Lord, wilt do, 
In Thy own time, by ways I cannot see, 
All that I feel when I am nearest thee ! " 



and 



A SEA DREAM. 

We saw the slow tides go and come, 
The curving surf-lines lightly drawn, 

The gray rocks touched with tender bloom 
Beneath the fresh-blown rose of dawn. 

We saw in richer sunsets lost 

The sombre pomp of showery noons ; 

And signalled spectral sails that crossed 
The weird, low light of rising moons. 

On stormy eves from cliff and head 

We saw the white spray tossed and spurned 

While over all, in gold and red, 
Its face of fire the lighthouse turned. 

The rail-car brought its daily crowds, 

Half curious, half Indifferent, 
Like passing sails or floating clouds, 

We saw them as they came and went. 

But, one calm morning, as we lay 
And watched the mirage -lifted wall 

Of coast, across the dreamy bay. 
And heard afar the curlew ea 1 1 . 



And nearer voices, wild or tame, 
Of airy Hock and childish throng, 

Up from the water's edge there came 
Faint snatches of familiar song. 

( lareless we heard the singer's choice 
Of old and common airs; at last 

The tender pathos of his voice 
In one low chanson held us fast. 

A song that mingled joy and pain, 
And memories old and sadly sweet; 

While, timing to its minor strain, 
The waves in lapsing cadence beat. 



The waves are glad in breeze and sun ; 

The rocks are fringed with foam ; 
I walk once more a haunted shore, 

A stranger, yet at home, — 

A land of dreams I roam. 

Is this the wind, the soft sea wind 
That stirred thy locks of brown ? 

Are these the rocks whose mosses knew 
The trail of thy light gown, 
Where boy and girl sat down ? 

I see the gray fort's broken wall, 

The boats that rock below ; 
And, out at sea, the passing sads 

We saw so long ago 

Rose-red in morning's glow. 

The freshness of the early time 

On every breeze is blown ; 
As glad the sea, as blue the sky, — 

The change is ours alone ; 

The saddest is my own. 

A stranger now, a world-worn man, 

Is he who bears my name ; 
But thou, methinks, whose mortal life 

Immortal youth became, 

Art evermore the same. 

Vhou art not here, thou art not there, 

Thy place I cannot see ; 
I only know that where thou art 

The blessed angels be, 

And heaven is glad for thee. 

Forgive me if the evil years 

Have left on me their sign ; 
Wash out, O soul so beautiful, 

The many stains of mine 

In tears of love divine ! 

I could not look on thee and live, 

If thou wert by my side ; 
The vision of a shining one, 

The white and heavenly bride, 

Is well to me denied. 

But turn to me thy dear girl-face 

Without the angel's crown, 
The wedded roses of thy lips, 

Thy loose hair rippling down 

In waves of golden brown. 

Look forth once more through space and time, 

And let thy sweet shade fall 
in tenderesl grace of soul and form 

On memory's frescoed wall. 

A shadow, and yet all ! 

Draw near, more near, forever dear ! 

Where'er I rest or roam, 
Or in the city's crowded streets, 



878 



A MYSTERY.— CONDUCTOR BRADLEY. —CHILD-SONGS. 



Or by the blown sea foam, 
The thought of thee is home ! 



At breakfast hour the singer read 
'I'll' city news, with comment wise, 

Like one who Cell t he pulse of trade 
Bern th his fingi r Call and rise. 

His look, his air, his curt speech, told 
The man of action, not of books, 

To whom the corners made in gold 

Anil stocks were more than seaside nooks. 

Of life beneath the life confessed 
His Bong had hinted unawares; 
Of flowers in traffic's ledgers pressed, 

Of human hearts in bulls and bears. 

But eyes in vain were turned to watch 

That face SO hard and shrewd and strong; 

And ears in vain grew sharp to catch 
The meaning of that morning song. 

In vain some sweet-voiced querist sought 
To sound him, leaving as she came; 

Her baited album only caught 
A common, unromantic name. 

No word betrayed the mystery fine, 
That trembled on the singer's tongue ; 

He came and went, and left no sign 
Behind him save the song he sung. 



A MYSTERY. 

The river hemmed with leaning trees 
Wound through its meadows green ; 

A low, blue line of mountains showed 
The open pines between. 

One sharp, tall peak above them all 
Clear into sunlight sprang : 

I saw the river of my dreams, 
The mountains that I sang ! 

No clew of memory led me on, 

But well the ways I knew ; 
A feeling of familiar things 

With every footstep grew. 

Not otherwise above its crag 
Could lean the blasted pine ; 

Not otherwise the maple hold 
Aloft its red ensign. 

So up the long and shorn foot-hills 
The mountain road should creep; 

So, green and low, the meadow fold 
Its red-haired kine asleep. 

The river wound as it should wind ; 

Their place the mountains took ; 
The white torn fringes of their clouds 

Wore no unwonted look ; 

Yet ne'er before that river's rim 
Was pressed by feet of mine, 

Never before mine cms had crossed 
That broken mountain line. 

A presence, strange al once and known. 

Walked with me as my guide; 
The skirts of some forgotten life 
Trailed noiseless at my side. 



Was it a dim-remembered dream? 

Or glimpse through icons old '; 
The secret which the mountains kept 
The river never told. 

But from the vision ere it passed 

A tender hope I drew, 
And, pleasant as a- dawn of spring, 

The thought within me grew, 

That love would temper every change, 

And soften all surprise, 
And, misty with the dreams of earth, 

The hills of Heaven arise. 



CONDUCTOR BRADLEY. 

Conductor Bradley, (always may his name 
Be said with reverence ! i as the swift doom came, 
Smitten to death, a crushed and mangled frame, 

Sank, with the brake he grasped just where he 

stood 
To do the utmost that a brave man could, 
And die, if needful, as a true man should. 

Men stooped above him ; women dropped their 

tears 
On that poor wreck beyond all hopes or fears, 
Lost in the strength and glory of his years. 

What heard they ? Lo ! the ghastly lips of pain, 
Dead to all thought save duty's, moved again : 
" Put out the signals for the other train ! " 

No nobler utterance since the world began 
From lips or saint or martyr ever ran, 
Electric, through the sympathies of man. 

Ah me ! how poor and noteless seem to this 
The sick-bed dramas of self-consciousness. 
Our sensual fears of pain and hopes of bliss ! 

(), grand, supreme endeavor ! Not in vain 
That last brave act of failing tongue and brain ! 
Freighted with life the downward rushing train, 

Following the wrecked one, as wave follows wave. 
Obeyed the warning which the dead lips gave. 
Others he saved, himself he could not save. 

Nay, the lost life was saved. He is not dead 
Who in his record still the earth shall tread 
With God's clear aureole shining round his head. 

We bow as in the dust, with all our pride 
Of virtue dwarfed the noble deed beside. 
God give us grace to live as Bradley died ! 



CHILD-SONGS. 

Still linger in our noon of time 
And on our Saxon tongue 

The echoes of the home-born hymns 
The Aryan mothers sung. 

And childhood had its litanies 

In every age and clime ; 
The earliest cradles of the race 

Were rocked to poet's rhyme. 



THE GOLDEN WEDDING OF LONGWOOD. 



37!) 



Nor sky, nor wave, nor tree, nor flower, 
Norgiecn earth's virgin sod, 

So moved the singer's heart of old 
As these small ones of God. 

The mystery of unfolding life 
Was more than dawning morn, 

Than opening flower or crescent moon 
The human soul new-born ! 

And still to childhood's sweet appeal 

The heart of genius turns, 
And more than all the sages teach 

From lisping voices learns, — 

The voices loved of him who sang. 
Where Tweed and Teviot glide, 

That sound to-day on all the winds 
That blow from Rydal-side, — 

Beard in the Teuton's household songs, 

And folk-lore of the Finn, 
Win' - i'er to holy Christinas hearths 

The Christ-child enters in ! 

Before life's sweetest mystery still 

The heart in reference kneels ; 
The wonder of the primal birth 

The latest mother f ? jls. 

We need love's tender lessons taught 

As only weakness can ; 
Gnd hath his small interpreters; 

The child must teach the man. 

We wander wide through evil years, 
Our eyes of faith grow dim ; 

jfctat he is freshest from His hands 
And nearest unto Him ! 

4nd haply, pleading long with Him 
For sin-sick hearts and cold, 

^he angels of our childhood still 
The Father's face behold. 

Of such the kingdom ! — Teach thou us, 

Master most divine. 
To feel the deep significance 

Of these wise words of thine ! 

The haughty eye shall seek in vain 

What innocence beholds ; 
No cunning finds the key of heaven, 

No strength its gate unfolds. 

Alone to guilelessness and love 

That gate shall open fall ; 
The mind of pride is nothingness 

The childlike heart is all ! 



THE GOLDEN WEDDING OF LONGWOOD. 

With fifty years between you and your well-kept 

wedding vow, 
The Golden Age, old friends of mine, is not a 

fable now. 

And, sweet as has life's vintage been through all 

your pleasant past, 
Still, as at Cana's marriage-feast, the best wine is 

the last! 

Again before me, with your names, fair Chester's 

landscape comes, 
Its meadows, woods, and ample bams, and quaint, 

stone-builded homes. 



The smooth-shorn vales, the wheaten slopes, the 

boscage green and soft, 
Of which their poet sings so well from towered 

Cedarcroft. 

And lo ! from all the country-side come neigh- 
bors, kith and kin ; 

From city, hamlet, farm-house old, the wedding 
guests come in. 

And they who, without scrip or purse, mob- 
hunted, travel-worn, 
I In Freedom's age of martyrs came, as victors 
now return. 

j Older and slower, yet the same, files in the long 

array, 
And hearts are light and eyes are glad, though 
heads are badger-gray. 

The fire-tried men of Thirty-eight who saw with 
me the fall, 

Midst roaring flames and shouting mob, of Penn- 
sylvania Hall ; 

And they of Lancaster who turned the cheeks of 

tyrants pale, 
Singing of freedom through the grates of Moya- 

mensing jail ! 

And haply with them, all unseen, old comrades, 

gone before, 
Pass, silently as shadows pass, within your open 
door, — 

The eagle face of Lindley Coates, brave Garrett's 

daring zeal, 
The Christian grace of Pennock, the steadfast 

heart of Neal. 

Ah me ! beyond all power to name, the worthies 

tried and true, 
Grave men, fair women, youth and maid, pass by 

in hushed review. 

Of varying faiths, a common cause fused all their 

hearts in one. 
God give them now, whate'er their names, the 

peace of duty done ! 

How gladly would I tread again the old-remem- 
bered places, 

Sit down beside your hearth once more and look 
in the dear old faces ! 

And thank you for the lessons your fifty years are 

teaching, 
For honest lives that louder speak than half our 

noisy preaching ; 

For your steady faith and courage in that dark 

and evil time, 
When the Golden Rule was treason, and to feed 

the hungry, crime ; 

For the poor slave's house of refuge when the 

hounds were on his track, 
And saint and sinner, church and state, joined 

hands to send him back. 

Blessings upon you ! — What you did for each sad, 

suffering one, 
So homeless, faint, and naked, unto our Lord was 

done ! 

Fair fall on Kennett's pleasant vales and Long- 
wood's bowery ways 

The mellow sunset of your lives, friends of my 
early days. 



280 



KINSMAN.— VESTA.— A CHRISTMAS CARMEN. 



May many more of quiet years be added to your 

sum, 
And, late at last, in tenderest love, the beckoning 

angel come. 

Dear hearts are here, dear hearts are there, alike 
below, abo\ e ; 

Our friends are now in either world, and love is 
sure of love. 



KINSMAN. 

DIED AT THE ISLAND OF PANAY (PHILIPPINE 
GROUP), A(iEl) 19 VEARS. 

Where ceaseless Spring her garland twines, 
As sweetly shall the loved one rest, 

As if beneath the whispering [tines 
And maple shadows of the West. 

Ye mourn, O hearts of home ! for him, 

But, haply, mourn ye not alone ; 
For him shall far-off eyes be dim, 

And pity speak in tongues unknown. 

There needs no graven line to give 
The story of his blameless youth ; 

All hearts shall throb intuitive, 
And nature guess the simple truth. 

The very meaning of his name 
Shall many a tender tribute win ; 

The stranger own his sacred claim. 
And all the world shall be his kin. 

And there, as here, on main and isle, 
The dews of holy peace shall fall, 

The same sweet heavens above him smile, 
And God's dear love be over all ! 



VESTA. 

O Christ of God ! whose life and death 

Our own have reconciled, 
Most quietly, most tenderly 

Take home thy star-named child ! 

Thy grace is in her patient eyes, 
Thy words are on her tongue ; 

The very silence round her seems 
As if the angels sung. 

Her smile is as a listening child's 

Who hears its mother call ; 
The lilies of Thy perfect peace 

About her pillow fall. 

She leans from out our clinging arms 

To rest herself in Thine ; 
Alone to Thee, dear Lord, can we 

Our well-beloved resign ! 

O, less for her than for ourselves 
We 1>:iw our heads and pray ; 

Her setting star, like Bethlehem's, 
To Thee shall point the way ! 



THE HEALER. 

TO A YOUNG PHYSICIAN, with Hold's PICTURE 
OF CHRIST HEALING THE SICK. 

So stood of old the holy Christ 
Amidst the suffering throng ; 
With whom his lightest touch sufficed 

To make the weakest strong. 

That healing gift he lends to them 

Who use it in his name ; 
The power that filled his garment's hem 

Is evermore the same. 

For lo ! in human hearts unseen 

The Healer dwelleth still, 
And they who make his temples clean 

The best subserve his will. 

The holiest task by Heaven decreed, 

An errand all divine. 
The burden of our common need 

To render less is thine. 

The paths of pain are thine. Go forth 
With patience, trust, and hope ; 

The sufferings of a sin-sick earth 
Shall give thee ample scope. 

Beside the unveiled mysteries 

Of life and death go stand, 
With guarded lips and reverent eyes 

And pure of heart and hand. 

So shalt thou be with power endued 

From Him who went about 
The Syrian hillsides doing good, 

And casting demons out. 

That Good Physician liveth yet 

Thy friend and guide to be ; 
The Healer by Gennesaret 

Shall walk the rounds with thee. 



A CHRISTMAS CARMEN. 



Sound over all waters, reach out from all lands, 
The chorus of voices, the clasping of hands ; 
Sing hymns that were sung by the stars of the 

morn, 
Sing songs of the angels when Jesus was born ! 
With glad jubilations 
Bring hope to the nations ! 
The dark night is ending and dawn has begun: 
Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun, 

All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one ! 



Sing the bridal of nations ! with chorals of love 
Sing out the war-vulture and Bing in the dove, 
Till the hearts of the peoples keep time in accord, 
And the voice of the world is the voice of the 
Lord ! 

( !lasp hands of the nations 

In strong gratulations : 
The dark night is ending and dawn has begun ; 
Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun, 

A 11 speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one ! 



HYMN.— THE DREAM OF ARGYLE. 



281 



Blow, bugles of battle, the marches of peace; 
East, west, north, and soath let the long quarrel 

cease : 
Sing the song of great joy fiat the angels began, 
Sing of glory to God and of good-will to man ! 

Hark ! joining in chorus 

The heavens bead o'er us ! 
The dark night is ending and dawn has begun ; 
Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun. 

All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one ! 



HYMN 

FOR THE OPENING OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH, ST. 
PAUL, MINNESOTA. 

All things are Thine : no gifts have we, 
Lord of all gifts ! to offer Thee ; 



And hence with grateful hearts to-day, 
Thy own before Thy feet we lay. 

Thy will was in the builders' thought ; 
Thy hand unseen amidst us wrought ; 
Through mortal motive, scheme and plan, 
Thy wise eternal purpose ran. 

No lack Thy perfect fulness knew ; 
For human needs and longings grew 
This house of prayer, this home of rest, 
In the fair garden of the West. 

In weakness and in want we call 

On Thee for whom the heavens are small; 

Thy glory is Thy children's good, 

Thy joy Thy tender Fatherhood. 

O Father ! deign these walls to bless : 
Fill with Thy love their emptiness : 
And let their door a gateway be 
To lead us from ourselves to Thee ! 



POEMS 

BY 

ELIZABETH H. WHITTIER. 



THE DREAM OF ARGYLE. 

Earthly arms no more uphold him 

On his prison's stony floor; 
Waiting death in his last slumber, 
Lies the doomed MacCallum More. 

And he dreams a dream of boyhood ; 

Rise again his heathery hills, 
Sound again the hound's long baying, 

Cry of moor-fowl, laugh of rills. 

Now he stands amidst his clansmen 
In the low, long banquet-hall, 

Over grim, ancestral armor 
Sees the ruddy firelight fall. 

Once again, with pulses beating, 
Hears the wandering minstrel tell 

How Montrose on Inverary 

Thief-like from his mountains fell. 

Down the glen, beyond the castle, 
Where the linn's swift waters shine, 

Round the youthful heir (if Argyle 
Shy feet glide and white arms twine. 

Fairest of the rustic dancers. 
Blue-eyed Effie smiles once more, 

Bends to him her snooded tresses, 
Treads with him the grassy floor. 

Now he hears the pipes lamenting. 
Harpers for his mother mourn, 

Slow, with sable plume and pennon, 
To her cairn of burial borne. 

Then anon his dreams are darker, 
Sounds of battle fill his ears, 



And the pibroch's mournful wailing 
For his father's fall he hears. 

Wild Lochaber's mountain echoes 
Wail in concert for the dead, 

And Loch Awe's deep waters murmur 
For the Campbell's glory fled ! 

Fierce and strong the godless tyrants 

Trample the apostate land, 
Wlide her poor and faithful remnant 

Wait for the Avenger's hand. 

Once again at Inverary, 

Years of weary exile o'er, 
Armed to lead his scattered clansmen, 

Stands the bold MacCallum More. 

Once again to battle calling 

Sound the war-pipes through the glen ; 
And the court-yard of Dunstaffnage 

Rings with tread of armed men. 

All is lost ! The godless triumph, 
And the faithful ones and true 

From the scaffold and the prison 
Covenant with God anew. 

On the darkness of his dreaming 
Great and sudden glory shone ; 

Over bonds and death victorious 
Stands he by the Father's throne ! 

From the radiant ranks of martyrs 
Notes of joy and praise he hears, 

Songs of his poor land's deliverance 
Sounding from the future years. 



282 



LINES.— JOHN QTTINCY ADAMS. 



Lo, he wakes ! but airs celestial 
Bathe him in immortal rest, 

Ami In sees with unsealed vision 
Scotland's cause with victory blest. 

Shining hosts attend and guard him 
As he leaves Ins prison door ; 

And to death as to a triumph 
Walks the great MacCallum More ! 



LINES 

WRITTEN ON THE DEPARTURE OF JOSEPH STURGE, 
AFTER HIS VISIT TO THE ABOLITIONISTS OF 
THE UNITED STATES. 

Fair islands of the sunny sea ! midst all re- 
joicing things, 

No more the wailing of the slave a wild discord- 
ance brings ; 

On the lifted brows of freemen the tropic breezes 
blow, 

The mildew of the bondman's toil the land no 
more shall know. 

TIow swells from those green islands, where bird 
and leaf and flower 

Are praising in their own sweet way the dawn of 
freedom's hour, 

The glorious resurrection song from hearts rejoic- 
ing poured, 

Thanksgiving for the priceless gift, — man's regal 
crown restored ! 

How beautiful through all the green and tranquil 
summer land. 

Uplifted, as by miracle, the solemn churches 
stand ! 

The grass is trodden from the paths where wait- 
ing freemen throng, 

Athirst and fainting for the cup of life denied so 
long. 

( ), blessed were the feet of him whose generous 

errand here 
Was to unloose the captive's chain and dry the 

mourner's tear ; 
To lift again the fallen ones a brother's robber 

hand 
Had left in pain and wretchedness by the way- 
i if the land. 

The islands of the sea rejoice ; the harvest an- 
thems rise ; 

The sower of the seed must own 't is marvellous 
in his eyes ; 

The old waste places are rebuilt, — the broken 
walls restored, — 

And t In- wilderness is blooming like the garden of 
the Lord ! 

Thanksgiving for the holy fruit ! should not the 
laborer rest, 

His earnest faith and works of love have been so 
richly blest ? 

The pride of all fair England shall her ocean isl- 
ands be, 

And their peasantry with joyful hearts keep 
ceaseless jubilee. 

Rest, never ! while his countrymen have trampled 

hearts to bleed. 
The stifled murmur of their wrongs his listening 

ear shall heed, 



Where England's far dependencies her might, not 

mi rcy, know. 
To all the crushed and suffering there his pitying 

love shall flow. 

The friend of freedom everywhere, how mourns 

he Eor our land, 
The branded' whose hypocrisy burns on her guilty 

hand ! 
Her thrift a theft, the robber's greed and running 

in her eye, 
Her glory shame, her flaunting flag on all the 

winds a lie ! 

For us with steady strength of heart and zeal for 

ever true, 
The champion of the island slave the conflict doth 

renew, 
His labor lure hath been to point the Pharisaic 

eye 
Away from empty creed and form to where the 

wounded lie. 

How beautiful to us should seem the coming feet 

of such ! 
Their garments of self-sacrifice have healing in 

their touch ; 
Their gospel mission none maj doubt, for they 

heed the Master's call. 
Who here walked with the multitude, and sat at 

meat with all ! 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

He rests with the immortals ; his journey has 

been long : 
For him no wail of sorrow, but a pa-an full and 

strong ! 
So well and bravely has he done the work he 

found to do, 
To justice, freedom, duty, God, and man forever 

true. 

Strong to the end, a man of men, from out the 

strife he passed ; 
The grandest hour of all his life was that of earth 

the last. 
Now midst his snowy hills of home to the grave 

they bear him down, 
The glory of his fourscore years resting on him 

like a crown. 

The mourning of the many bells, the drooping 
flags, all seem 

Like some dim, unreal pageant passing onward in 
a dream ; 

And following with the living to Ids last and nar- 
row bed, 

Methinks I see a shadowy band, a train of noble 
dead. 

'T is a strange and weird procession that is slow 

ly moving on, 
The phantom patriots gathered to the funeral of 

1 heir SOD ! 
In shadowy guise they move along, brave Otis 

with hushed tread. 
And Warren walking reverently by the father of 

the dead. 

I Gliding foremost in the misty band a gentle form 
is there, 
In the white robes of the angels and their glory 
round her hair. 



DR. KANE IN CUBA.— LADY FRANKLIN.— NIGHT AND DEATH. 



283 



She hovers near and bends above her world-wide 

honored child. 
And the joy that heaven alone can know beams 

on her features mild. 

And so they bear him to his grave in the fulness 

of his years, 
True sage and prophet, leaving us in a time of 

many fears. 
Nevermore amid the darkness of our wild and 

evil day 
Shall his voice be heard to cheer us, shall his 

finger point the way. 



DR. KANE IN CUBA. 

A noble life is in thy care, 

A sacred trust to thee is given ; 
Bright Island ! let thy healing air 

Be to him as the breath of Heaven. 

The marvel of his daring life — 
The self -forgetting leader bold — 

Stirs, like the trumpet's call to strife, 
A million hearts of meaner mould. 

Eyes that shall never meet his own 
Look dim with tears across the sea. 

Where from the dark and icy zone, 

Sweet Isle of Flowers ! he comes to thee. 

Fold him in rest, O pitying clime ! 

Give back his wasted strength again ; 
Soothe, with thy endless summer time, 

His winter-wearied heart and brain. 

Sing soft and low, thou tropic bird, 
From out the fragrant, flowery tree, — 

The ear that hears thee now has heard 
The ice-break of the winter sea. 

Through his long watch of awful night, 
He saw the Bear in Northern skies ; 

Now, to the Southern Cross of light 
He lifts in hope his weary eyes. 

Prayers from the hearts that watched in fear, 
When the dark North no answer gave, 

Rise, trembling, to the Father's ear, 
That still His love may help and save. 



LADY FRANKLIN. 

Fold thy hands, thy work is over ; 

Cool thy watching eyes with tears ; 
Let thy poor heart, over-wearied, 

Rest alike from hopes and fears, — 

Hopes, that saw with sleepless vision 
One sad picture fading slow ; 

Fears, that followed, vague and nameless, 
Lifting back the veils of snow. 

For thy brave one, for thy lost one, 

'Truest heart of woman, weep ! 
Owning still the love that granted 
Unto thy beloved sleep. 

Not for him that hour of terror 
When, the long ice-battle o'er, 

In the sunless day his comrades 
Deathward trod the Polar shore. 



Spared the cruel cold and famine, 
Spared the fainting heart's despair, 

What but that could mercy grant him ? 
What but that has been thy prayer? 

Dear to thee that last memorial 
From the cairn beside the sea ; 

Evermore the month of roses 
Shall be sacred time to thee. 

Sad it is the mournful yew-tree 
O'er his slumbers may not wave ; 

Sad it is the English daisy 
May not blossom on his grave. 

But his tomb shall storm and winter 
Shape and fashion year by year, 

PQe his mighty mausoleum, 

Block by block, and tier on tier. 

Guardian of its gleaming portal 
Shall his stainless honor be, 

While thy love, a sweet immortal, 
Hovers o'er the winter sea. 



NIGHT AND DEATH. 

The storm-wind is howling 

Through old pines afar ; 
The drear night is falling 

Without moon or star. 

The roused sea is lashing 

The bold shore behind, 
And the moan of its ebbing 

Keeps time with the wind. 

On, on through the darkness, 

A spectre, 1 pass 
Where, like moaning of broken hearts, 

Surges the grass ! 

I see her lone head -stone, — 

'T is white as a shroud ; 
Like a pall, hangs above it 

The low drooping cloud. 

Who speaks through the dark night 

And lull of the wind ? 
'T is the sound of the pine-leaves 

And sea-waves behind. 

The dead girl is silent, — 

I stand by her now ; 
And her pulse beats no quicker, 

Nor crimsons her brow. 

The small hand that trembled, 

When last in my own, 
Lies patient and folded. 

And colder than stone. 

Like the wdiite blossoms falling 

To-night in the gale, 
So she in her beauty 

Sank mournful and pale. 

Yet I loVed her ! I utter 

Such words by her grave, 
As I would not have spoken 

Her last breath to save. 

Of her love the angels 

In heaven might tell, 
While mine would be whispered 

With shudders in hell ! 



284 



THE MEETING WATERS.— THE WEDDING VEIL— CHARITY. 



'T was well that the white ones 

Who bore her to bliss 
Shut out i'rmn her new life 

The vision of this. 

KUc, sine as I stand here, 

An I speak of my love, 
She would leave for my darkness 

Her glory above. 



THE MEETING WATERS. 

Close beside the meeting waters, 
Long I stood as in a dream, 

Watching how the little river 
Fell into the broader stream. 



Calm ami still the mingled current 

Glided to the waiting sea; 
On its breast serenely pictured 

Floating cloud ami skirting tree. 

And I thought, " 0, human spirit ! 

Strong and deep and pure and blest, 
Let the stream of my existence 
Blend with thine, and find its rest ! ' 

I could die as dies the river, 
In that current deep and wide ; 

I would live as live its waters, 
Flashing from a stronger tide ! 



THE WEDDING VEIL. 

Dear Anna, when I brought her veil, 
Her white veil on her wedding night, 

Threw o'er my thin brown hair its folds, 
And, laughing, turned me to the light. 



" See, Bessie, see ! you wear at last 
The bridal veil, foresworn for years! " 

She saw my face, — her laugh was hushed, 
Her happy eyes were rilled with tears. 

With kindly haste and trembling hand 
She dnw away the gauzy mist ; 

" Forgive, dear heart ! " her sweet voice said 
llii h>\ ing lips my forehead kissed. 

We passed from out the searching light; 

The summer night was calm and fair: 
I did not Bee her pitying eyes, 

I felt her soft hand smooth my hair. 

Her tender love unlocked my heart; 

'Mid falling tears, at last I said, 
" Foresworn indeed to me that veil 

Because I'only love the dead ! " 

She stood one moment statue-still, 
And, musing, spake in undertone, 

"The living love may colder grow ; 
The dead is safe with God alone ! " 



CHARITY. 

The pilgrim and stranger who through the day 
Holds over the desert his trackless way 
Where the terrible sands no shade have known 
No sound of life save his camel's moan, 
Hears, at last, through the mercy of Allah to all, 
From his tent-door at evening the Bedouin's call : 
" Who" ver thou art whose need is great, 
In tin Hume of (■'<>(/, tin Compassionate 
And Merciful One, for thee I wait I" 

For gifts in His name of food and rest 
The tents of [slam of God are blest, 
Thou who hast faith in the Christ above, 
Shall the Koran teach thee the Law of Love ?- 
O, Christian ! — open thy heart and door, 
( ry east and west to the wandering poor: 
" Whoevei thou art whose i<<<<! is great, 
In tin mime of Christ, tin Compassionate 
And Merciful One, for line I wait ! " 



THE VISION OF ECHARD. 



285 



THE VISION OF ECHAKD, 

AND OTHER POEMS. 



THE VISION OF ECHARD. 



The Benedictine Eehanl 
Sat, worn by wanderings far, 

Where Marsberg sees the bridal 
Of the Moselle and Sane. 

Fair with its sloping vineyards 
And tawny chestnut bloom, 

The bappy vale Ausonius sung 
For holy Treves made room. 

On the Shrine Helena builded 
To keep the Christ coat well, 

On minster tower and kloster cross, 
The westering sunshine fell. 

There, where the ruck-hewn circles 
O'erlooked the Roman's game, 

The veil of sleep fell on him, 
And his thought a dream became. 

He felt the heart of silence 
Throb with a soundless word. 

And by the inward ear alone 
A spirit's voice he heard. 

And the spoken word seemed written 
On air and wave and sod, 

And the bending walls of sapphire 
Blazed with the thought of God: 

"What lack I, my children V 

All things are in my hand ; 
The vast earth and the awful stars 
I hold as grains of sand. 

" Need I your alms ? The silver 

And gold are mine alone; 

The gifts ye bring before me 

Were evermore my own. 

" Heed I the noise of viols. 

Your pomp of masque and show? 
Have I not (lawns and sunsets ? 
Have I not winds that blow V 

" Do I smell your gums of incense ? 
Is my ear with chantings fed? 
Taste 1 your wine of worship, 
Or eat your holy bread ? 

"Of rank and name and honors 
Am I vain as ye are vain ? 
What can Eternal Fulness 
From your lip-service gain ? 

" Ye make me not your debtor 
Who serve yourselves alone; 
Ye boast to me of homage 
Whose gain is all your own. 

" For you I gave the prophets, 
For you the Psalmist's lay; 
For you the law's stone tables, 
And holy book and day. 

" Ye change to weary burdens 
The helps that should uplift; 
Ye lo-e in form the spirit, 
The Giver iu the gift. 



" Who called ye to self-torment, 
To fast and penance vain? 
Dream ye Eternal Goodness 
Has joy in mortal pain ? 

"For the death in life of Nitria, 
For your Chartreuse ever dumb, 
What better is the neighbor, 
Or happier the home ? 

" Who counts his brother's welfare 
As sacred as his own, 
And loves, forgives, and pities, 
He serveth me alone. 

" I note each gracious purpose, 
Each kindly word ami deed; 
Are ye not all my children V 
Shall not the Father heed ? 

"No prayer for light and guidance 
Is lost upon mine ear : 
The child's cry in the darkness 
Shall not the Father hear? 

"I loathe your wrangling councils, 
I tread upon your creeds ; 
Who made ye mine avengers, 
Or told ye of my needs ? 

" I bless men and ye curse them, 
I love them and ye hate; 
Ye bite and tear each other, 
I suffer long and wait. 

"Ye bow to ghastly symbols, 

To cross and scourge and thorn; 
Ye seek his Syrian manger 
Who in the heart is born. 

" For the dead Christ, not the living, 
Ye watch his empty grave 
Whose life alone within you 
Has power to bless and save. 

" O blind ones, outward groping, 
The idle quest forego ; 
Who listens to his inward voice 
Alone of him shall know. 

"His love all love exceeding 
The heart must needs recall, 
Its self-surrendering freedom, 
Its loss that gaineth all. 

" Climb not the holy mountains, 
Their eagles know not me; 
Seek not the Blessed Islands, 
I dwell not in the sea. 

" The gods are gone forever 

From Zanskar's glacier sides, 
And in the Buddha's footprints 
The Ceylon serpent glides. 

" No more from shaded Delpbos 
The weird responses come: 
Dodona's oaks are silent, 
The Hebrew Bath-Col dumb ! 



286 



llll. WITCH OF WENHAM. 



" No more from rocky Iloreb 
The smitten waters gush; 
Fallen is Bethel's ladder, 
Quenched is the burning bush. 

"The jewels of the Orim 

And Tbummim all are dim ; 
The fire has lefl the altar, 
The sign the terapBim. 

" No more in ark or hill grove 
The Holiest abides ; 

.Not in the scroll's dead letter 
The eternal secret hides. 

" The eye shall fail that searches 
For me the hollow sky ; 
The far is even as the near, 
The low is as the high. 

•' What if the earth is hiding 

Her old faiths, long outworn? 

What is it to the changeless truth 

That yours shall fail in turn ? 

"What if the o'erturned altar 
Lavs bare the ancient lie ? 
What if the dreams and legends 
Of the world's childhood die ? 

" Have ye not still my witness 
Within yourselves alwav, 
My hand that on the keys of life 
For bliss or bale I lay ? 

" Still, in perpetual judgment, 
I hold assize within, 
With sure reward of holiness, 
And dread rebuke of sin. 

" A light, a guide, a warning, 
A presence ever near, 
Through the deep silence of the flesh 
I reach the inward ear. 

"My Gerizim and Ebal 

Are in each human soul, 
The still, small voice of blessing, 
And .Sinai's thunder-roll. 

" The stern behest of duty, 

The doom-book open thrown, 
The heaven ye seek, the hell ye fear, 
Are with yourselves alone." 



A gold and purple sunset 

Flowed down the broad Moselle; 
On hills of vine and meadow lands 

The peace of twilight fell. 

A slow, cool wind of evening 
Blew over leaf and bloom; 

And, faint and far, the Angelus 
Rang from Samt Matthew's tomb. 

Then up rose Master Echard, 
And marvelled: " Can it be 

That here, in dream and vision, 
The Lord hath talked with me ? " 

He went his way; behind him 
The shrines of saintly dead, 

The holy coat and nail of cross, 
He left unvisited. 

He sought the vale of Eltzbach 
His burdened soul to free, 

Where the foot-hills of the Eifel 
Are glassed in Laachersee. 



And, in his Order's kloster, 
I le sat, in night long parle, 

With Tai ler of the Friends of God, 
And Nicolas of Basle. 

And lo ! the twain made answer: 
" Yea, brother, even thus 

The Voice above all voices 
Hath spoken unto us. 

" The world will have its idols, 

And flesh and sense their sign; 
But the blinded eyes shall open, 
And the gross ear be fine. 

" What if the vision tarry? 
God's time is always best; 
The true Light shall be witnessed, 
The Christ within confessed. 

11 In merely or in judgment 

He shall turn and overturn, 
Till the heart shall be his temple 
Where all of him shall learn." 



THE WITCH OF WENHAM. 



Along Crane River's sunny slopes 

Blew warm the winds of May, 
And over Naumkeag's ancient oaks 

The green outgrew the gray. 

The grass was green on Rial-side, 

The early birds at. will 
Waked up the violet in its dell, 

The wind-flower on its hill. 

"Where go you, in your Sunday coat? 

Son Andrew, tell me, pray." 
"For striped perch in Wenham Lake 

I go to fish to-day." 

"Unharmed of thee in Wenham Lake 
The mottled perch shall be: 
A blue-eyed witch sits on the bank 
And weaves her net tor thee. 

" She weaves her golden hair ; she sings 
Her spell-song low and faint ; 
The wickedest witch in Salem jail 
Is to that girl a saint." 

"Nay mother, hold thy cruel tongue; 

God knows," the young man cried, 
" He never made a whiter soul 

Than hers by Wenham side. 

"She tends her mother sick and blind, 
And every want supplier 
To her above the blessed Look 
She lends her soft blue eyes. 

" Her voice is glad with holy songs, 
Her lips are SW eel with prayer ; 
Go where you will, in ten miles round 
Is none more good and fair." 

"Son Andrew, for the love of God 
And of thy mother, stay ! " 

She clasped her hands, she wept aloud. 
Lilt Andrew rode away. 

"0 reverend sir, my Andrew's soul 
The Wenham witch has caught; 

She holds him with the curled gold 
Whereof her snare is wrought. 



THE WITCH OF WENHAM. 



287 



" Slie charms him with her great blue 
eyes, 

She binds him with her hair; 
Oh, break the spell with holy words. 
Unbind him with a prayer! " 

"Take heart," the painful preacher said, 
•• This mischief shall not lie : 
The witch shall perish in her sins, 
And Andrew shall go free. 

•' Our poor Ann Putnam testifies 
She saw her weave a spell, 
Bare-armed, loose-haired, at full of 
moon, 
Around a dried-up well. 

" • Spring up, well ! ' she softly sang, 
["he Hebrew's old refrain 
i I'm- Satan uses Bible words), 
Till water flowed amain. 

" And many a goodwife heard her speak 
By Wenham water words 
That made the buttercups take wings 
And turn to yellow birds. 

" They say that swarming wild bees seek 
The hive at her command; 
And tithes swim to take their food 
From out her dainty hand. 

"Meek as she sits in meeting-time, 
The godly minister 
Notes well the spell that doth compel 
The young men's eyes to her. 

81 The mole upon her dimpled chin 
Is Satan's seal and sign ; 
Her lips are red with evil bread 
And stain of unblest wine. 

" For Tituha, my Indian, saith 
At Quasj cung she took 
The Black Man's godless sacrament 
And signed his dreadful hook. 

'• Lasl night my sore-afflicted child 
Against the young witch cried. 
To take her Marshal Merrick rides 
Even now to Wenham side." 

The marshal in his saddle sat, 
His daughter at his knee; 
" I go to fetch that arrant witch, 
Thy fair playmate," quoth he. 

"Her spectre walks the parsonage, 
And haunts both hall and stair; 
They know her by the great blue eyes 
And floating gold of hair." 

"They lie, they lie, my father dear! 
No foul old witch is she, 
But sweet and good and crystal-pure 
As Wenham waters be." 

" I tell thee, child, the Lord hath set 
Before us good and ill, 
And woe to all whose carnal loves 
Oppose his righteous will. 

" Between Him and the powers of hell 
Choose thou, my child, to-day: 
No sparing hand, no pitying eye, 
When God commands to slay ! " 

He went his way; the old wives shook 
With fear as "he drew nigh ; 

The children in the dooryards held 
Their breath as he passed by. 



Too well they knew the gaunt gray horse 
The grim witch-hunter rode — 

The pale Apocalyptic beast 
By grisly Death bestrode. 



Oh, fair the face of W'enham Lake 

Upon the young girl's .-hone. 
Her tender mouth, her dreaming eyes, 

Her yellow hair outblown. 

By happy youth and love attuned 

To natural harmonies, 
The singing birds, the whispering wind, 

She sat beneath the tree-. 

Sat shaping for her bridal dress 

Her mother's wedding gown, 
When lo ! the marshal, writ in hand, 

From Alford hill rode down. 

His face was hard with cruel fear, 
He grasped the maiden's hands : 
; Come with me unto Salem town, 
For so the law commands ! " 

Oh, let me to my mother say 

Farewell before I go ! " 
He closer tied her little hands 

Unto his saddle bow. 

: Unhand me," cried she piteously, 
" For thy sweet daughter's sake." 

: I '11 keep my daughter safe," he said, 
" From the witch of Wenham Lake." 

■ Oh, leave me for my mother's sake, 

She needs my eyes to see." 
Those eyes, young witch, the crows shall peck 

From off the gallows-tree." 

He bore her to a farm-house old, 

And up its stairway long, 
And closed on her the garret-door 

With iron bolted strong. 

The day died out, the night came down ; 

Her evening prayer she said, 
While, through the dark, strange faces seemed 

To mock her as she prayed. 

The present horror deepened all 

The fears her childhood knew; 
The awe wherewith the air was filled 

With every breath she drew. 

And could it be, she trembling asked, 

Some secret thought or sin 
Had shut good angels from her heart 

And let the had ones in? 

Had she in some forgotten dream 

Let go her hold on Heaven, 
And sold herself unwittingly 

To spirits unforgivenV 

Oh, weird and still the dark hours passed; 

No human sound she heard, 
But up and down the chimney stack 

The swallows moaned and stirred. 

And o'er her, with a dread surmise 

Of evil sight and sound, 
The blind bats on their leathern wings 

W T ent wheeling round and round. 

Low hanging in the midnight sky 

Looked in a half-faced moon. 
Was it a dream, or did she hear 

Her lover's whistled tune V 



288 



SUNSET ON THE BEAKCAMP. 



She forced the oaken scuttle back ; 
A whisper reached her ear: 
•• Slide down the roof to me," it said. 
"So softly none may hear." 

She slid along the sloping roof 
Till from its eaves she hung, 

And fell the loosened shingles yield 
To which her fingers clung. 

Below her lover stretched his hands 
Ami touched her feel so small ; 
" Drop dow n in me, dear heart," he 
said, 
■• M\ arms shall break the fall." 

I [e set her on his pillion soft, 
I [er arms aboul him t w Lned ; 

And, noiseless as if velvet-shod, 
They left the house behind. 

But when they reached the open way, 

Full free the rein he casl ; 
Oh, never through the mirk midnight 

Rode man and maid more fast. 

Along the wild wood-paths they sped, 
The bridgeless streams they swam; 

At set of moon they passed the Bass, 
At sunrise Agawam. 

At high noon on the Merrimac 

The ancient ferryman 
Forgot, at times, his idle oars, 

So fair a freight to scan. 

And when from off his grounded boat 
He saw them mount and ride, 
•' God keep her from the evil eye, 
And harm of witch ! " he cried. 

The maiden laughed, as youth will laugh 
At all its fears gone by ; 
''He dues not know," she whispered low, 
"A little witch am I." 

All day he urged his weary horse, 

And, in the red sundown, 
Drew rein before a friendly door 

In distant Berwick town. 

A fellow-feeling for the wronged 

The Quaker people tilt : 
And safe beside their kindly hearths 

The hunted maiden dwelt, 

Until from off its breast the land 

The haunting horror threw, 
And hatred, born of ghastly dreams, 

To shame and pity grew. 

Sad were the year's spring morns, and 
sad 

IN golden summer day, 
But blithe and glad its withered fields, 

And skies of ashen gray; 

For spell and charm had power no more, 

The spectres ceased to roam, 
And scattered households knelt again 

Around the hearths of home. 

Ami when once more by Bea\ er Dam 
The meadow-lark outsang, 

And once again on all the hills 
The early violets sprang, 

And all the windy pasture slopes 

Lay green within the arms 
Of creeks that bore the salted sea 

To pleasant inland farms, 



The smith tiled off the chains he forged, 
The jail-bolts backward fell ; 

And youth and hoary age came forth 
Like souls escaped from hell. 



SUNSET ON Tin; BEARCAMP. 

A i.i n.t> fringe on the purpling hem 

< >! hills the river runs. 
As down its long, green valley falls 

The last of summer's miiis. 
Along it ^ tawny gravel-bed 

Broad-flowing, swift, and still, 

As if its meadow levels felt 

The hurry of the hill, 
Noiseless between its banks of green 

from curve to curve it slips ; 
The drowsy maple-shadows rest 

Like fingers on its lips. 

A waif from Carroll's wildest hills, 

Unstoried and unknown ; 
The ursine legend of its name 

Prowls mi its hanks alone. 
Yet flowers as lair its slopes adorn 

As ever Varrow knew, 
( >r, under rainy Irish skies. 

I >\ Spenser's Mulla grew ; 
And' through the gaps of leaning trees 

Its mountain cradle show - : 
The gold against the amethyst, 

The green against the ruse. 

Touched by a light that hath no name, 

A glory never sung, 
Aloft on sky and mountain wall 

Are Ood's great pictures hum;. 
How changed the summits vast and old! 

No longer granite-browed, 
They unit in rosy mist; the rock 

Is softer than the cloud : 
The valley holds its breath; no leaf 

Of all its elms is twirled : 
The silence of eternity 

Seems falling on the world. 

The pause before the breaking seals 

Of mystery is this; 
Ynn miracle-play of night and day 

Makes dumb its witnesses. 
What unseen altar crowns the hills 

That reach up stair on stair? 
What eyes look through, what white wings 
fan 

These purple veils of air? 
What Presence from the heavenly heights 

To those (if earth stoops down ? 
Not vainly Hellas dreamed of gods 

On Iila's snowy crown ! 

Slow fades the vision of the sky, 
The -olden water pales. 

And over all tin- valley-land 

A gray-winged vapor s^ils. 
I go the common way of all; 

The sunset tires will burn, 
The th.wers will blow, the river flow, 

When I no more return. 
No whisper from the mountain pirn- 

Nor lapsing stream shall tell 
The stranger, treading where I tread, 

Of him who loved them well. 

But beauty seen is never lost. 

God's colors all are fast ; 
The glory of this sunset hea\ en 

Into my soul has passed, — 
A sense of gladness uucotilined 

To mortal date or clime ; 



THE SEEKING OF THE WATERFALL. 



289 



As the soul Iiveth, it shall live 


And snow-cold winds from off them shake 


Beyond the years oi time. 


The maple's red leaves down. 


Beside the mystic asphodels 


But I shall see a summer sun 


Shall bloom the homi bom flowers, 


Still setting- broad and low ; 


And new horizons flush and glow 


The mountain slopes shall blush and bloom, 


With sunset hues of ours. 


The golden water flow. 




A lover's claim is mine on all 


Farewell! these smiling hills must wear 


I see to have and hold, — 


Too soon their wintry frown, 


The rose-light of perpetual hills, 




And sunsets never cold! 




But on the river's farthest side 
We saw the hilltops glorified." 



THE SEEKING OF THE WATERFALL. 

They left their home of summer ease 
Beneath the lowland's sheltering trees, 
To seek, by ways unknown to all, 
The promise of the waterfall. 

Some vague, faint rumor to the vale 
Had crept — perchance a hunter's tale — 
Of its wild mirth of waters lost 
On the dark woods through which it tossed. 

Somewhere it laughed and sang; somewhere 
Whirled in mad dance its misty hair; 
But who had raised its veil, or seen 
The rainbow skirts of that Undine ? 

They sought it where the mountain brook 
Its swift way to the valley took ; 
Along the rugged slope they clomb, 

Their guide a thread of sound and foam. 

Height after height they slowly won; 
The fiery javelins of the sun 
Smote tin- hare ledge; the tangled shade 
With rock and vine their steps delayed. 

But, through leaf-openings, now and then 
They saw the cheerful homes of men, 
19 



And the great mountains with their wall 
Of misty purple girdling all. 

• 
The leaves through which the glad winds 

blew 
Shared the wild dance the waters knew; 
And where the shadows deepest fell 
The wood-thrush rang his silver bell. 

Fringing the stream, at every turn 
Swung low the waving fronds of fern; 
From stony cleft ami mossy sod 
Pale asters sprang, and golden-rod. 

And still the water sang the sweet, 
Glad son;;' that stirred its gliding feet, 
And found in rock and root the keys 
Of its beguiling melodies. 

Beyond, above, its signals flew 
Of tossing foam the birch-trees through; 
Now -no, now lost, but baffling still 
The weary seekers' slackening will. 

Each called to each: " Lo here! Lo 

there ! 
Its white scarf flutters in the air! " 
They climbed anew; the vision fled, 
To beckon higher overhead. 



290 



JUNE ON THE MERKIMAO 



So toiled they up the mountain-slope 
With faint and ever fainter hope ; 
Willi faint and fainter voice the brook 
Still bade them listen, pause, and look. 

Meanwhile below the day was done; 
Above the tall peaks saw the sun 
Sink, beam-shorn, t" its misty set 
Behind the hills of violet. 

" Here ends our quest ! " the seekers cried, 
■ I he brook and rumor both have lied ! 
The phantom of a waterfall 

lias led ns at its beck and call." 

But one, with year- grown wiser, said: 
• : So, always baffled, not misled, 
We follow where before us runs 
The vision of the shining ones. 

"Not when' they seem their signals fly, 
Their voices while we listen die; 
We cannol keep, however fleet, 
The quick time of their winged feet. 

" From youth to age unresting stray 

These kindly mockers in our way; 
Yet lead they not, the baffling elve-. 
To something heller than themselves? 

"Here, though unreached the goal we 

sought. 

Its own reward our toil has brought : 

The winding water's sounding rush, 

The long note of the hermit thrush, 

" The turquoise lakes, the glimpse of pond 
And river track, and. vast, beyond 
Broad meadows belted round with pines, 
The grand uplift of mountain lines ! 

"What matter though we seek with pain 
The garden of the gods in vain, 
If lured thereby we climb to greet 
Some wayside blossom Edeil-sweet V 

" To seek is better than to gain, 
The fond hope dies as we attain ; 
Life's fairest things are those which 

seem, 
The best is that of which we dream. 

" Then let us trust our waterfall 
Still flashes down its rocky wall, 
With rainbow crescent curved across 
Its sunlit spray from moss to moss. 

" And we, forgetful of our pain, 
In thought shall seek it oft again; 
Shall see this aster-blossomed sod, 
This sunshine of the golden-rod, 

" And haply gain, through parting boughs, 
Grand glimpses of great mountain brows 
Cloud-turbaned, and the --harp steel sheen 
< >f lakes deep set in vallej s green. 

" So failure wins; the consequence 
Of los- becomes its recompense ; 
And evermore the end shall tell 
The unreached ideal guided well. 

" Our sweet illusions only die 
Fulfilling love's sure prophecy; 
And every wish for better things 
An undreamed beauty nearer brings. 

" For fate is servitor of love ; 
Desire and hope and longing prove 
The secret of immortal youth. 
And Nature cheats us into truth. 



kind allurers, wisely sent, 
Beguiling with benign intent. 
Still move ns. through divine unrest, 
To seek the loveliest and the best ! 

Go with us when our -ouls go free, 
And, in the clear, white light to be, 
Add unto Heaven's beatitude 

The old deli-ht of seeking good ! " 



JUNE ON THE MERRIMAC. 

dwellers in the statelj towns, 

What come ye out to see ? 
This common earth, this common sky, 
This water flowing free ? 

As gayly as these kalmia flowers 
lour door-yard blossoms spring; 

As sweetly as these wildwood birds 
Your caged minstrels sing. 

You find bul common bloom and green, 

The rippling river's rune. 
The beauty which is every w here 

Beneath the skies of June ; 

The Hawkswood oaks, the storm-torn plumes 

Of (dd pine-forest kings, 
Beneath whose century-woven shade 

Deer Island's mistress sings. 

And here are pictured Artichoke, 

And Curson's bowery mill ; 
And Pleasant Valley smiles between 

The river and the hill. 

Y'ou know full well these banks of bloom, 

The upland's wavy line, 
And how the sunshine tips with fire 

The needles of the pine. 

fet, like some old remembered psalm, 

Or sweet, familiar face, * 
Not less because of commonness 

You love the day and place. 

And not in vain in this soft air 

Shall hard-strung nerves relax, 
Not all in vain the o'erworn brain 

Forego its daily tax. 

The lust of power, the greed of gain 

Have all the year their own ; 
The haunting demons well may let 

Our one bright day alone. 

Unheeded let the newsboy call. 

Aside the ledger lay ; 
The world will keep his tread-mill step 

Though we fall not to-day. 

The truants of life's weary school, 

Without excuse from thrift 
We change for once the gains of toil 

For God's unpurchased gift. 

From ceiled rooms, from silent books, 

From crowded car and town. 
Dear Mother Earth, upon thy lap 

We lay our tired heads down. 

Cool, summer wind, our heated brows: 

Blue river, through the green 
Of clustering pines, refresh the eyes 

Which all too much have seen. 

For us these pleasant woodland ways 
Are thronged with memories old, 



HYMN OF THE DUNKERS.— IX THE "OLD SOUTH.' 



201 



Have felt the grasp of friendly hands 
And heard love's story told. 

A sacred presence overbroods 
The earth whereon we meet; 

These winding forest-paths are trod 
By more than mortal feet. 

Old friends called from us by the 

Voice 

Which they alone could hear, 
From mystery to mystery, 
From life to life, draw near. 

More closely for the sake of them 
Each other's hand- we press ; 

Our voices take from them a tone 
Of deeper tenderness. 

Our joy is theirs, their trust is ours, 

Alike below, above, 
Or here or there, about us fold 

The arms of one great love ! 

We ask to-day no countersign, 

No party names we own ; 
Unlabelled, individual, 

We bring ourselves alone. 

What cares the unconventioned wood 
For pass-words of the town ? 

The sound of fashion's shibboleth 
The laughing waters drown. 

Here cant forgets his dreary tone, 

And care his face forlorn; 
The liberal air and sunshine laugh 

The bigot's zeal to scorn. 

From manhood's weary shoulder falls 

His load of selfish cares ; 
And woman takes her rights as flow- 
ers 

And brooks and birds take theirs. 

The license of the happy woods, 
The brook's release, are ours; 

The freedom of the unshamed wind 
Among the glad-eyed flowers. 

Yet here no evil thought finds place, 

Nor foot profane comes in ; 
Our grove, like that of Samothrace, 

Is set apart from sin. 

We walk on holy ground ; above 

A sky more holy smiles; 
The chant of the beatitudes 

Swells down these leafy aisles. 

Thanks to the gracious Providence 
That brings us here once more ; 

For memories of the good behind 
And hopes of good before ! 

And if, unknown to us, sweet days 
Of June like this must come. 

Unseen of us these laurels clothe 
The river-banks with bloom; 

And these green paths must soon be 
trod 

By other feet than ours, 
Full long may annual pilgrims come 

To keep the Feast of Flowers; 

The matron be a girl once more, 

The bearded man a boy, 
And we, in heaven's eternal June, 

Be glad for earthly joy ! 



HYMN OF THE DUNKERS. 

KLOSTER KEDAR, EPHRATA, PENNSYLVANIA. 17^8. 
SISTER MARIA CHRISTINA sings. 

Wake, sisters, wake! the day-star shines; 
Above Ephrata's eastern pines 
The dawn is breaking, cool ami calm. 
Wake, sisters, wake to prayer and psalm! 

Praised he the Lord for shade and light, 
For toil by day, for rest by night! 
Praised lie Hi- name who deigns to bless 
Our Kedar of the wilderness! — 

Our refuge when the spoiler's hand 

Was heavy on our native land; 
And freedom, to her children due, 
The wolf and vulture only knew. 

We praised Him when to prison led, 
We owned Him when the stake blazed red; 
We knew, whatever might befall, 
His love and power were over all. 

He heard our prayers; with outstretched arm 
He led us forth from cruel harm : 
Still, wheresoe'er our steps were bent, 
His cloud and fire before us went ! 

The watch of faith and prayer He set, 
We kept it then, we keep it yet. 
At midnight, crow of cock, or noon, 
He cometh sure, He cometh soon. 

He comes to chasten, not destroy, 
To purge the earth from sin's alio}-. 
At last, at last shall all confess 
His mercy as His righteousness. 

The dead shall live, the sick be whole, 
The scarlet sin be white as wool ; 
No discord mar below, above, 
The music of eternal love ! 

Sound, welcome trump, the last alarm ! 
Lord God of hosts, make hare thine arm, 
Fulfil this day our long desire, 
Make sweet and clean the world with fire ! 

Sweep, flaming besom, sweep from sight 
The lies of time; be swift to smite, 
Sharp sword of God, all idols down, 
Genevan creed and Roman crown. 

Quake, earth, through all thy zones, till all 
The fanes of pride and priestcraft fall; 
And lift thou up in place of them 
Thy gates of pearl, Jerusalem ! 

Lo ! rising from baptismal flame, 
Transfigured, glorious, yet the same, 
Within the heavenly city's bound 
Our Kloster Kedar shall be found. 

He cometh soon ! at dawn or noon 
Or set of sun, He cometh soon. 
Our prayers shall meet Him on his way; 
Wake, sisters, wake! arise and pray! 



IN THE "OLD SOUTH." 

1677. 
She came and stood in the Old South Church, 

A wonder and a sign, 
With a look the old-time sibyls wore, 

Half-crazed and half-divine. 



292 



LEXINGTON. - CENTENNIAL HYMN. 



Save the mournful sackcloth about her wound 

I rnclothed as the primal mother, 
With limbs that trembled and eyes that blazed 

With a ihv she dared not smother. 

Loose "ii her shoulders fell her hair 

With sprinkled ashes gray, 
She stood in the broad aisle strange and weird 

As a soul at the judgment day. 

And the minister paused in his sermon's midst, 
And the people held their breath, 

For these were the words the maiden spoke 
Through lips as pale as death : 

"Thus saith the Lord, with equal feet 
All men my courts shall tread, 
And priest and ruler no more shall eat 
My people up like bread ! 

'' Repent ! repent ! ere the Lord shall speak 
In thunder and breaking seals ! 
Let all souls worship Him in the way 
His light within reveals." 

She shook the dust from her naked feet, 

And her sackcloth closer drew. 
And into the porch of the awe-hushed chinch 

.she passed like a ghost from view. 

They whipped her away at the tail o' the cart 
Through half the streets of the town, 

But. the words she uttered that day nor lire 
Could burn nor water drown. 

And now the aisles of the ancient church 

By equal feet are trod, 
And the hell that swings in its belfry rings 

Freedom to worship God! 

And now whenever a wrong is done 

It thrills the conscious walls; 
The stone from the basement cries aloud 

And the beam from the timber calls. 

There are steeple-houses on every hand, 

And pulpits that Mess and ban, 
And the Lord will not grudge the single church 

That is set apart for man. 

For in two commandments are all the law 

And the prophets under the sun, 
And the first i- last and the last is first, 

And the twain are verily one. 

So long as Boston shall Boston be, 

And her hay-tides rise and fall, 
Shall freedom stand in the old South Church 

And plead for the lights of all ! 



LEXINGTON. 

1775. 

No Berserk thirst of blood bad they, 
Xo battle-joy was theirs, who set 
Against the alien bayonel 

Then- homespun breasts in that old day. 

Their feet had trodden peaceful ways; 

They loved not strife, they dreaded pain; 

They saw not, what to us is plain. 
That God would make man's wrath his praise. 

No sei rs were they, but simple men ; 
Its vast results the future hid : 
The meaning of the work they did 

Was strange and dark aud doubtful then. 



Su ift as their summons came thej lef( 
The plough mid-furrow standing still, 
The half-ground corn grist in the mill. 

The spade in earth, the axe in cleft. 

They went where duty seemed to call, 
They scarcely asked the reason why; 
I lu\ onl\ know they could hut die, 
And death was not the worst of all ! 

Of man for man the sacrifice, 

All that was theirs to give, they gave. 

The flowers that blossomed from their grave 
Have sown themselves beneath all skies. 

Their death shot shook the feudal lower, 
And shattered slavery's chain as Well; 
( )n the sky's dome, as on a bell, 

Its echo struck the world's great hour. 

That fateful echo is nol dumb : 
'I he nations listening to its sound 
Wait, from a century's vantage-ground, 

The holier triumphs yet to come, — 

The bridal time of Law and Love. 
The gladness id' the world's release, 
When, war-sick, at the feet of Peaci 

The hawk shall nestle with the dove! — 

The golden age of brotherhood 

Unknown to other ri\ alries 

Than of the mild humanities, 
And gracious interchange of g I. 

When closer strand shall lean to strand, 
Till meet, beneath saluting flags, 
The eagle of our mountain-crags, 

The lion of our Motherland ! 



CENTENNIAL HYMN. 



Our fathers" God! from out whose band 
The centuries fall like grains of sand, 
We meet to-day, united, free, 
And loyal to our land and Thee, 
To thank Thee for the era done, 
And trust Thee for the opening one. 



ir. 

Here, where of old, by Thy design, 

The fathers spake thai word id' Thine 
Whose echo is the glad refrain 
Of rended boll and falling chain, 
To grace our festal time. From all 
The /ones of earth our guests we call. 



Be with in while the New World greets 
The Old World thronging all its streets, 
I rnveiling all the triumphs won 
By art or toil beneath the sun ; 
And unto common -nod ordain 
This rivalship of hand and brain. 



Thou, who bast here in concord furled 
The war Hags of a gathered world, 
Beneath our Western skies fulfil 
The Orient's mission of good-will, 
And. freighted with love's Golden Fleece, 
Send back its Argonauts of peace. 



THIERS. — WILLIAM FRANCIS BARTLETT. 



293 



V. 


He toiled and sang; and year by year 


Men found their homes more sweet, 


For art and labor met in truce, 


And through a tenderer atmosphere 


For beauty made the bride of use, 


Looked down the brick-walled street. 


We thank Thee; but, withal, we crave 




The austere virtues strong to save, 


The Greek's wild onset Wall Street knew; 


The honor proof to place or gold, 


The Red King walked Broadway; 


The manhood never bought aor sold! 


And Alnwick Castle's roses blew 




From Palisades to Bay. 


VI. 


Fair City by the Sea ! upraise 


oli make Thou u~. through centuries long, 


His veil « ith reverent hands ; 


In pea in justice strong ; 


And mingle with thy own the praise 


Around our gifi of freedom draw 


And pride of other lands. 


The safeguards of Thy righteous law; 




And, casl in some diviner mould. 


Let Greece his fiery lyric breathe 


Let the new cycle shame the old ! 


Above her hero-unts : 




And Scotland, with Inn' holly, wreathe 
The flower lie culled for Burns. 




THIERS. 


Oh, stately stand thy palace walls, 


i. 


Thy tall ships ride the seas : 


To-day thy poet's name recalls 


Fate summoned, in gray-bearded age, to act 


A prouder thought than the- . 


A history stranger than his written fact, 




Him who portrayed the splendor and the gloom 


Not less thy ptdse of trade shall beat, 


Of thai great hour when throne and altar fell 


Nor less thy tall fleets swim. 


With long death-groan which still is audible. 


That shaded square ami dusty street 


Hi', when around the walls of Paris rung 


Are classic ground through him. 


The Prussian bugle like the blast of doom, 




And every ill which follows unblest war 


Alive, he loved, like all who sing, 


Maddened all France from Finistere to Var, 


The echoes of his song; 


The weight of fourscore from his shoulders 


Too late the tardy meed we bring, 


flung, 


The praise delayed so long. 


And guided Freedom in the path he saw 




Lead out of chaos into light and law, 


Too late, alas ! Of all who knew 


Peace, not imperial, but republican, 


The living man, to-day 


And order pledged to all the Rights of Man. 


Before his unveiled face, how few 




Make bare their locks of gray ! 


II. 


Our lips of praise must soon be dumb, 


Death called him from a need as imminent 


Our grateful eyes be dim ; 


As that from which the Silent William went 


brothers of the days to collie, 


When powers of evil, like the smiting seas 


Take tender charge of him ! 


Ou Holland's dikes, assailed her liberties. 




Sadly, while yet in doubtful balance hung 


New hands the wires of song may sweep, 


The weal and' woe of France, the bells were rung 


New voices challenge fame; 


For her lost leader. Paralyzed of will, 


But let no moss of years o'ercreep 


Above his bier the hearts of men stood still. 


The lines of Halleck's name. 


Then, as if sit to his dead lips, the horn 




Of Roland wound once more to rouse and warn 




The old voice filled the air! His last brave word 




Not vainly France to all her boundaries stirred. 


WILLI AM FRANCIS. BARTLETT. 


Strong as in life, he still for Freedom wrought, 




As the dead Cid at red Toloso fought. 


On, well may Essex sit forlorn 




Beside her sea-blown shore ; 




Her well beloved, her noblest born, 






Is hers in life no more ! 


FITZ-GREENE IIALLECK. 






No lapse of years can render less 


AT THE UNVEILING OF HIS STATUE. 


Her memory's sacred claim ; 




No fountain of forgetfulness 


Among their graven shapes to whom 


Can wet the lips of Fame. 


Thy civic wreaths belong, 




city of his love, make room 


A grief alike to wound and heal, 


For one who-.- gift was song. 


A thought to soothe and pain, 




The sad, sweet pride that mothers feel 


Not his the soldier's sword to wneld, 


To her must still remain. 


Nor his the helm of state, 




Nor glory of the stricken Held, 


Good men and true she has not lacked, 


Nor triumph of debate. 


And brave men yet shall be : 




The perfect flower, the crowning fact, 


In common ways, with common men, 


Of all her years was he ! 


He served his race and time 




As well a- if his clerkly pen 


As Galahad pure, as Merlin sage. 


Had never danced to rhyme. 


What worthier knight was found 




To grace in Arthur's golden age 


If, in the thronged and noisy mart, 


The fabled Table Round '? 


The Muses found their son, 




Could any say his tuneful art 


A voice, the battle's trumpet-note, 


A duty left undone ? 


To welcome and restore; 



29 I 



THE TWO ANGELS. — THE HENCIHU \\. 



A hand, that all unwilling smote, 
To heal and build once more ! 

\ .ill <>i fire, a tender heart 
Too warm for hair, he knew 

merous victor's graceful part 
[ o sheathe the sword he drew ■ 

When Earth, as if on evil dreams, 

Looks back upon her war-, 
\u.i the white light of Ghrisl outstreams 

From the red disk of Mars, 

His lame w ho led the stormj van 

Of battle well maj ceas e, 
lint never that wliirli crowns iln- man 

Whose victory was Pea 

Mourn, Essex, on thy sea-blown shore 

Tliv beautiful and bra\ e, 
Whose failing hand the olh e bore, 

Whose 'l\ ing lips forgave ! 

Let age lament the vouthful chief, 

And tender eyes be dim ; 
The tears are more of joy than grief 

Thai fall for one like him ! 



"Welcome, mj angels! ye have brought a holier 

joy to heaven ; 
Henceforth its sweetest song shall be the song of 

sin forgiven ! " 



THE TWO ANGELS. 

God called the nearest angels who dwell with Him 

above : 
The tenderest one was Pity, the dearest one was 

Love. 

"Arise," He said, " mj angels! a wail of woe and 

sill 
Steals through the gates of heaven, and saddens all 
within. 

"My harps take up the mournful strain that from 

a lost, world swells. 
The smoke of torment clouds the light and blights 

the asphodels. 

"Fly downward to that under world, and on its 

souls of pain 
Let Love drop smiles like sunshine, and Pity tears 

like rain ! " 

Two faces bowed before the Throne veiled in their 

golden hair; 
Four white wings lessened swiftly down the dark 

abyss of air. 

The way was strange, the Sight was long; at last 

the angels came 
Where sw ung the lost and aether world, redwrapped 

in rayless flame. 

There Pity, shuddering, wept; but Love, with faith 

too strong for tear. 
Took heart from God's almightiness and smiled a 

smile of cheer. 

And lo! that tear of Pity quenched the flame 
w hereon it fell, 

And. with the sunshine of that smile, hope en- 
tered into hell ! 

Two unveiled faces full of joy looked upward to 

the Throne, 
Four white w ings folded at the feet of Him who sat 

thereon ! 

And deeper than the sound of seas, more soft than 
falling flake, 

Amidst the hush of wiug and song the Voice Eter- 
nal spake : 



THE LIBRARY. 



si n<; vr nil'. OPENING OF i HE 
BRA lO . 



HAVERHILL Ll- 



• Let there be light I " God spake of ol 

And over chaos dark and cold, 

And through the dead and formless frame 

Of nature, life and order came. 

Faint was the light at first that shone 
( )n giant fern and mastodon, 

On half-formed plant and beast of prey, 
And man as rude and wild as the}'. 

Age alter age, like waves, o'erran 
The earth, uplifting brute and man ; 
And mind, at length, in svinhols dark 
Its meanings traced on stone and bark. 

On leaf of palm, on sedge-wrought roll, 
On plastic (day and leathern scroll, 
Alan wrote his thoughts; the ages passed. 
And lo ! the Press was found at last ! 

Then dead souls woke; the thoughts of men 
\\'ho>e bones were dust revived again; 
The cloister's silence found a tongue, 
Old prophets spake, old poets sung. 

And here, to-day. the dead look down, 
The kings of mind again we crown; 
We hear the voices lost so long, 
The sage's word, the sibyl's song. 

Here Greek and Roman find themselves 

Alive along these crowded shelves; 

And Shakespeare heads again his stage 
And ( 'haiicer paints anew his age. 

As if s e Pantheon's marbles broke 

Their stony trance, and lived and spoke, 
Life thrills along tin; alcoved hall, 

The lords of thought await our call ! 



THE HENCHMAN. 

My lady walks her morning round. 
My lady's page her fleet greyhound, 
My lady's hair the fond winds stir, 
And all the birds make songs for her. 

Her thrushes sing in Etathburn bowers. 
And Rathbuni side is gay with flowers; 
lint ne'er like hers, in flower or bird, 
Was beauty seen or music heard. 

The distance of the stars i:; hers; 
The least of all her worshippers, 
The dust beneath her dainty heel, 
Me' knows not that I see or feel. 

( )li proud and calm! — she cannot know 
Where'er she goes with her 1 go ; 

< >h cold and fair ! — she cannot guess 
I kneel lo share her hound's caress ! 

Gay knights beside her hunt and hawk, 
I rob their ears of her sweet talk ; 
Her suitors come from east and west, 
I steal her smiles from every guest. 



KIXU SOLOMON AND THE ANTS. — RED KIDIXO-IIOOD. 



295 



Unheard of her, in loving words, 

I greet bier \\ ith the song of birds; 

I reach her with her green-armed bowers 

I kiss her with the lip- of flowers. 

The hound and I are on her trail, 

The wind and I uplift her veil : 

A- it the calm, cold >u she were. 

And 1 the tide, I follow her. 

A- unrebuked as thej , I 

The license of the sun and air, 

And in a common homage hide 

My worship from her scorn and pride. 

World-wide apart, and yet so near, 
I breathe her charmed atmosphere, 
Wherein to her my service brings 
The reverence due to holy things. 

Her maiden pride, her haughty name, 
My dumb devotion shall nol shame ; 
The love that no return doth crave 
To knightly levels lifts the slave. 

No lance have I, in jousl or fight, 
To splinter in my lady's sighl ; 
But, at her feet, how blest were I 
For any need of hers to die ! 



KING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS. 

Out from Jerusalem 
The king rode with his great 
War chiefs and lords of state, 

Ami Sheba's queen with them, 

Comely, but black withal, 
To whom, perchance, belongs 
That wondrous Song of songs, 

Sensuous and mystical, 

Whereto devout souls turn 

In fond, ecstatic dream, 

And through its earth-born theme 
The Love of loves discern. 

Proud in the Syrian sun, 
in gold and purple sheen, 
The dusky Ethiop queen 

Smiled on King Solomon. 

Wisest of in. mi, he knew 
The languages of all 
The creatures great or small 

That trod the earth or flew. 

Across an ant-hill led 

The king's path, and lie heard 
Ii- small folk, and their word 

He thus interpreted : 

"Here comes tin- king men greet 
As wise and good ami just. 
To crush us iii the dust 
Under his heedless feet." 

The great king bowed his head, 
And saw tin- wide surprise 
i if the Queen of Sheba's eyes 

As he told her what they said. 

•• < ) kin-- ! " she whispered sweet, 
"Too happy fate have they 
Who perish in thy way 
Beneath thy gracious feet! 

••Thou of tin- God-lent crown, 
Shall these vile creatures dare 



Murmur against thee where 
The knees of kings kneel down ? " 

•• Nay." Solomon replied, 

•• Tin' wise and strong should seek 
Tin' welfare of the weak," 
And turned his horse aside. 

His train, with quick alarm, 
( lurved with their leader round 
The ant-hill's peopled mound, 

And left it free from harm. 

The jewelled head benl lo^ ; 

'• < ) king ! " she said, " henceforth 

The secret of thy worth 
And w isdom well 1 know. 

" Happy must be the State 
Whose ruler heedeth more 
The murmurs of the poor 
Than flatteries of the great." 



RED RIDING-HOOD. 

On the wide lawn the .-now lay deep, 
Ridged o'er with many a drifted heap; 
The wind that through the pine-trees sung 
The naked elm-boughs tossed and swung; 
While, through the window, Erosty-starred, 
Against the sunset purple barred, 
We saw the sombre crow flap by, 
The hawk's gray fleck along the sky. 
The crested blue-jay flitting swift, 
The squirrel poising on the drift, 
Erect, alert, his broad "ray tail 
Set to the north wind like a sail. 
It came to pass, our little lass, 
With flattened face against the glass, 
And eyes in which the tender dew 
Of pity shone, stood gazing through 
The narrow space her rosy lips 
Had melted from the frost's eclipse: 
•■ I Ih, see," -be cried, "the poor blue-jays ! 
What is it thai the black crow says'? 
The squirrel lifts his little legs 
Because he has no bands, and begs; 
He's asking for my nuts, I know; 
May I not feed them on the snow ? " 

Half lost within her boots, her head 
Warm-sheltered in her hood of red, 
Her plaid skirl close about her drawn. 
She floundered down the wintry lawn : 
Now struggling through the misty veil 
Blown round her by the shrieking gale ; 
Now sinking in a drift so low 
Her scarlet hood could scarcely show 
Its dash of color on the snow. 

She dropped for bird and beast forlorn 
Hejf little store of nuts and corn, 
And thus her timid guests bespoke: 
"Come, squirrel, from your hollow oak, — 

Come, black old crow, — come, poor blue-jay, 
Before your supper's blown awa\ 

Don't be afraid, we all are g 1: 

And I 'm mamma's Red Riding-Hood ! " 

( ) Thou whose care is over all, 
Who heedest even the sparrow's fall, 
Keep in the little maiden's breast 
The pity which is now its guest ! 
Let not her cultured year- make less 
The childhood charm of tenderness, 
But let her feel a- v\ ell as know , 
Nor harder with her polish grow ! 
Unmoved by sentimental grief 
That wails along some printed leaf, 



20G THE PRESSED GENTIAN.— "I WAS A STRANGER, AND YE TOOK ME IN. 



But prompt with kindly word and deed 
To own the claims of ail who need, 
Lei the grown woman's self make good 
The promise of Red Riding-Hood ! 



THE PRESSED GENTIAN. 

Tin', time of gifts has come again, 
And. on in \ northern window-pane, 
Outlined against t In- day's brief light, 
A < Ihristmas token hangs in sight. 
The wayside travellers, as they pass, 
Mark the gray disk of clouded glass; 
And the dull blankness seems, perchance, 
Folly to their wise ignorance. 

They cannot from their outlook see 

The perfect grace it hath forme; 

For there the flower, whose fringes through 

The frosty breath of autumn blew, 

Turns from without ii- Eace of bloom 

To the warm tropic of my room, 

As fair as when beside its brook 

The hue of bending skies it took. 

So, from the trodden ways of earth, 

Seem some sWeet souk who veil their WOl'tll, 

And offer to the careless glance 

The clouding graj of circumstance. 

They blossom best where hearth-fires burn, 

To loving eyes alone they turn 

The flowers of inward grace, that hide 

Their beauty from the world outside. 

But deeper meanings come to me, 
My half-immortal flower, from thee! 
Man judges from a partial view, 
None ever yet bis brother knew; 
The Eternal Eye thai sees the whole 
May better read the darkened soul, 
And find, to outward sense denied, 
The flower upon its inmost side! 



OVERRULED. 

Tiik threads our hands in blindness spin 
No self-determined plan weaves in; 
The shuttle of the unseen powers 
Works out a pattern not as ours. 

Ah! small the choice of him who sings 
What sound shall leave the smitten strings; 
Fate holds and guides the band of art; 
The singer's is the servant's part. 

The wind-harp chooses not the tone 

That through its trembling threads is blown: 

Tin' patient organ cannot guess 

What hand its passive keys shall press. 

Through wish, resolve, and act, our will 
Is moved by undreamed forces still; 
And no man measures in advance 
His strength with untried circumstance. 

As streams take hue from shade and sun, 
As runs the life the song must, run; 
But, glad or sad, to his good end 
God grant the varying notes may tend! 



I IV. MX 



SUNG AT THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE CHILDREN'S 
MISSION, BOSTON, 1878. 

Thine are all the gifts, God! 
Thine the broken bread ; 



Let the naked feet be shod, 
Ami the starving fed. 

Let I h\ ■ cl.ii In n :.\ I hv grace, 

Give as they abound, 
Till the poor have breathing-space, 

And the lost are found. 

Wiser than the miser's hoards 

Is the giver's choice ; 
Sweeter than the song of birds 
Is the thankful \ oil 

Welcome smiles on face- sad 
As the flowers of spring; 

Let the lender hearts be glad 
"With the joy they bring. 

I [appier for their pity's sake 
Make their sports and plays. 

And from lips of childhood take 

Thy perfected praise ! 



GIVING AND TAKINGS 

Wiin gives and hides the giving hand, 
Noi- counts on favor, fame, or praise, 
Shall find his smallest gift outweighs 

The burden of the sea and land. 

Who gives to whom hath naught been given, 
Hi- gift in need, though small indeed 
As is the grass-blade's wind-blown seed, 

Is large as earth and rich as heaven. 

Foi gel it not, O man. to whom 
A gift shall fall, while yet on earth; 
Yea, even to thy seven-fold birth 

Recall it in the lives to come. 

Who broods above a wrong in thought 
Sins much; but greater sin is his 
Who, fed and clothed with kindnesses, 

Shall count the holy alms as nought. 

Who dares to curse the bands that bless 
Shall know of sin the deadliest cost; 
The patience of the heavens is lost 

Beholding man's unthankfulness. 

For he who breaks all laws may still 

In Sivani's mercy be forgiven; 

But unite can save, in earth or heaven, 
The wretch who answers good with ill. 



"I WAS A STRANGER. AND YE TOOK ME 
IN." 

'Neath skies that winter never knew 
The air was full of light and balm, 

And warm and soft the Gulf wind blew 

Through orange bloom and groves of palm. 

A stranger from the frozen North. 

Who sou-ht the fount of health ill vain, 

Sank homeless on the alien earth, 

And breathed the languid air with pain. 

God's angel came ! The tender shade 
Of pity made her blue eye dim ; 

Against her woman's breast she laid 
The drooping, fainting head of him. 

She bore him to a pleasant room. 

Flower-sweet and cool with salt sea air, 

1 I have attempted to put in English verse a prose 
translation of a poem bj Tiunevaluva, a Hindoo poet of 
the third century of our era. 



AT SCHOOL-CLOSE.— THE PROBLEM. 



297 



And watched beside his bed, for whom 
His far-off sisters might not care. 

She fanned his feverish brow and smoothed 

Its lines of pain with tenderest touch. 
With holy hymn and prayer she soothed 
The trembling soul that feared so much. 

Through her the peace that passeth sight 
( ame to him, as he lapsed away 

As one whose troubled dreams of night 
Slide slowly into tranquil day. 

The sweetness of the Land of Flowers 
Upon his lonely grave she laid : 

The jasmine dropped its golden showers, 
The orange lent its bloom and shade. 

And something whispered in her thought, 
More sweet than mortal voices be: 
"The service thou for him hast wrought, 
O daughter ! hath been done for me." 



AT SCHOOL-CLOSE. 

BOWDOIN STREET, 1877. 

The end has come, as come it must 
To all things; in these sweet dune days 

The teacher and the scholar trust 
Their parting feet to separate ways. 

They part : but in the years to be 

Shall pleasant memories cling to each, 

As shells bear inland from the 
The murmur of the rhythmic beach. 

One knew the joy the sculptor knows 
When, plastic to his lightest touch, 
His clay-wrought model slowly grows 
* To that line grace desired so much. 

So daily grew before her eyes 

The living shapes whereon she wrought, 
Strong, tender, innocently wise, 

The child's heart with the woman's thought. 

And one shall never quite forget 

The voice that called from dream and play, 
The linn but kindly hand that set 

Her feet in learning's pleasant way, — 

The joy of Undine soul-possessed, 

The wakening sense, the strange delight 

That swelled the fabled statue's Breast 
And filled its clouded eyes with sight ! 

O Youth and Beauty, loved of all ! 

Ye pass from girlhood's gate of dreams; 
In broader ways your footsteps fall, 

Ye test the truth of all that seems. 

Her little realm the teacher leaves, 
She breaks her wand of power apart, 

While, for your love and trust, she gives 
The warm thanks of a grateful heart. 

Hers is the sober summer noon 
Contrasted with your morn of spring; 

The waning with the waxing moon, 
The folded with the outspread wing. 

Across the distance of the years 

She sends her God-speed back to you: 

She has no thought of doubts or fears: 
He but yourselves, be pure, be true, 

And prompt in duty ; heed the deep, 
Low voice of conscience ; through the ill 



And discord round about you, keep 
Your faith in human nature still. 

Be gentle: unto griefs and needs, 

Be pitiful as woman should, 
And, .spite of all the lies of creeds, 

Hold fast th«' truth that God is good. 

Give and receive: go forth and bless 

The world that needs the hand and heart 

Of Martha's helpful carefulness 
No less than .Mary's better part. 

So shall the stream of time flow by 
And have each year a richer good, 

And matron loveliness outvie 

The nameless charm of maidenhood. 

And. when the world shall link your names 
With gracious lives and manners tine, 

The teacher shall assert her claims, 

And proudly whisper, ••These were mine!' 



AT EVENTIDE. 

Poor and inadequate the shadow-play 

Of gain ami loss, of waking and of dream, 
Against life's solemn background needs must 
seem 
At this late hour. Yet. not unthankfully, 
I call to mind the fountains by the way. 
The breath of flowers, the bird-song on the spray, 
Dear friends, sweet human loves, the joy of yiviug 
And of receiving, the great boon of living 

In grand historic years when Liberty 
Had need of word ami work, quick sympathies 
For all who fail and sutler, song's relief, 
Nature's uncloying loveliness; and chief, 
The kind restraining hand of Providence, 
The inward witness, the assuring sense 
Of an Eternal Good which overlies 
The sorrow of the world, Love which outlives 
All sin and wrong, Compassion which forgives 
To the uttermost, and Justice whose char eves 
Through lapse and failure look to the intent, 
And judge our frailty by the life we meant. 



THE PROBLEM. 



Not without envy Wealth at times must look 
On their brown strength who wield the reaping- 
hook 

And scythe, or at the forge-fire shape the plough 
Or the steel harness of the steeds of steam ; — 

All who, by skill and patience, anyhow 
Make service noble, and the earth redeem 
From savageness. By kinglv accolade 
Than theirs was never wortblertknighthood made. 
Well for them, if, while demagogues their vain 
And evil counsels proffer, they maintain 

Their honest manhood unseduced, and wage 
No war with Labor's right to Labor's gain 
Of sweet home-comfort, rest of hand and brain, 

And softer pillow for the head of Age. 



And well for Gain if it ungrudging yields 
Labor its just demand; and well for Ease 
If in the uses of its own, it sees 

No wrong to him who tills its pleasant fields 
And spreads the table of its luxuries. 

The interests of the rich man and the poor 

Are one and same, inseparable evermore ; 

And, when scant wage or labor fail to give 



298 



RESPONSE. — THE KING'S MISSIVE. 



Food, shelter, raiment, wherewithal to live, 
Nei d has its rights, necessity its claim. 
Yea, even self-wrought misery and shame 
Tesl well the charity suffering long and kind. 
The home-pressed question of the age can find 
No answer in the catch-words of the blind 
Leaders of blind. Solul ion there is none 
Save in the Golden Rule of ('lirist alone. 



RESPONSE. 

1877. 

Beside that milestone where the level sun, 
Nigh unto setting, sheds his last, low rays 



On word and work irrevocably done, 
Lite's blending threads of good and ill out- 
spun. 
I hear, () friends ! your words of cheer 
and praise, 
Half doubtful if myself or otherwise. 
Like him who, in the old Arabian joke, 
A beggar slept and crowned Caliph woke. 

Thanks not the less. W'itl t unglad sur 

prise 
I see my life-work through your partial eyes; 
Assured, in giving to m\ home-taught songs 
\ higher value than of right belongs, 
Von do hut read between the written lines 
The finer grace of unfulfilled designs. 



THE KING'S MISSIVE, 

AND OTHER POEMS. 



THE PRELUDE. 

I spread a scanty board too late; 

The old-time guests for whom I wait 
('nine few and slow, niethinks, to-day. 

Ah! who could hear my messages 

Across the dim unsounded seas 

On which so many have sailed away! 

Come, then, old friends, who li ne'er yet, 
An.! lei us meet, as we have met, 
Once more beneath this low sunshine; 

And grateful for the g 1 we 've known, 

The riddles solved, the ills outgrown, 

.shake hands upon the border-line. 

The favor, asked t< ft before, 

From your indulgent ears, once more 

I crave, ami, if belated lays 
To slower, feebler measures move, 
The silent sympathy of love 

To me is dearer now than praise. 

And ye, O younger friends, for whom 
My hearth and heart keep open room, 

Come smiling through the shadows long 
Be with me while the sun goes down, 
And with your cheerful voices drown 

The minor of my even-song. 

For, equal through the. day and night, 
The wise Eternal oversight 

And love and power and righteous "'ill 
Remain : the law of destiny 
The best for each and all must be, 

And life its promise shall fulfil. 



TilF KING'S MISSIVE." 

1661. 

Under the great hill sloping bare 

To cove and meadow and Common lot. 
In his council chamber and oaken chair, 
Sat the worshipful Governor Endicott. 
\ grave, strong man, who knew no peer 
In the pilgrim land, where he ruled in fear 
Of (. m1, not man, and for good or ill 
Held his trust with an iron will. 



lie had shorn with his sword the cross from out 

The flag, and cloven the May-pole down. 
Harried the heathen round about, 

And whipped the Quakers from town to town. 
Earnest and honest, a man at need 
To hum like' a torch fur his own harsh creed, 
He kept with the flaming brand of his zeal 
The gate of the holy common weal. 

His brow was clouded, his eye was stern. 

With a look of mingled sorrow and wrath : 
" Woe 's me ! " he murmured : " at every turn 

The pestilent Quakers are in my path ! 
Some we have scourged, ami banished some. 
Some hanged, more doomed, and still they come, 
Fast as the tide of yon bay sets in. 
Sowing their heresy's seed of sin. * 

" Did we count on this ? Did we leave behind 

The graves of our kin, the comfort and ease 
Of our English hearths and homes, to find 

Troublers of Israel such as these'? 
Shall I spare ? Shall I pity them V God forbid! 
I will do as the. prophet to Agag did: 
They come to poison the wells of the Word, 
I will hew them in pieces before the Lord! " 

The door swung open, and Rawson the clerk 

Entered, ar.d whispered under breath, — 
"There waits below for the hangman's work 

A fellow banished on pain of death — 
Shattuck, of Salem, unhealed of the whip, 
Brought over in Master Goldsmith's ship 
At anchor here in a Christian port, 
With freight of the devil and all his sort! " 

Twice ajid thrice on the chamber floor 
Striding fiercely from wall to wall, 
" The Lord do so to me and more," 

The Governor cried, " if I hang not all ! 
Bring hither the Quaker." < 'aim, sedate, 
With the look of a man at ease with fate, 
Into that presence grim and dread 
Came Samuel Shattuck, with hat on head. 

" Off with the knave's hat ! " An angry hand 
Smote down the offence: but the wearer said, 
With a quiet smile, " By the king's command 
I hear his message and stand in his stead." 
In the Governor's hand a missive he laid 
With the royal arms on its seal displayed, 
And the proud man spake, as he gazed thereat, 
Uncovering, "Give Mr. Shattuck his hat." 



THE KING'S MISSIVE. 



299 



V," 



inMffliiiiwM;. ' mm® 




H I 






He turned to the Quaker, bowing low, — 

" The king commandeth your friends' release, 

Doubt not he shall be obeyed, although 
To his subjects' sorrow and sin's increase. 

What he here enjoineth, John Endicott, 

His loyal servant, questioneth not. 

You are free! God grant the spirit you own 

May take you from us to parts unknown." 

So the door of the jail was open cast, 

And, like Daniel, out of the lion's den 
Tender youth and girlhood passed, 

With age-bowed women and gray-locked men. 
And the voice of one appointed to die 
Was lifted in praise and thanks on high, 
And the little maid from New Netherlands 
Kissed, in her joy, the doomed man's hands. 

And one, whose call was to minister 

To the souls in prison, beside him went, 
An ancient woman, bearing with her 

The linen shroud for his burial meant. 
For she, not counting her own life dear, 
In the strength of a love that cast out fear, 
Had watched and served where her brethren died, 
Like those who waited the cross beside. 

One moment they paused on their way to look 
On the martyr graves by the Common side, 
And much scourged Wharton of Salem took 

His burden of prophecy up and cried: 
"Rest, souls of the valiant! Not in vain 
Have ye borne the Master's cross of pain : 
Ye have fought the fight, ye arc victors crowned, 
With a fourfold chain ye have Satan bound ! " 

The autumn haze lay soft and still 

On wood and meadow and upland farms : 

On the brow of Snow Hill the great windmill 
Slowly and lazily swung its arms; 



Broad in the sunshine stretched away, 
With its capes and islands, the turquoise bay ; 
And over water and dusk of pines 
Blue hills lifted their faint outlines. 

The topaz leaves of the walnut glowed, 
The sumach added its crimson fleck, 

Ami double in air and water showed 
The tinted maples along the Neck ; 

Through frost flower clusters of pale star-mist, 

And gentian fringes of amethyst, 

And royal plumes of golden-rod, 

The grazing cattle on Gentry trod. 

But as they -who see not, the Quakers saw 

The world about them; they only thought 
With deep thanksgiving and pious awe 

On the great deliverance God had wrought. 
Through lane and alley the gazing town 
Noisily followed them up and down; 
Some with scoffing and brutal jeer, * 
Some with pit}' and words of cheer. 

One brave voice rose above the din. 

Upsall, gray with bis length of days, 
Cried from the door of his Red Lion Inn: 

'• Men of Boston, give God the praise! 
No more shall innocent blood call down 
The bolts of wrath on your guilty town. 
The freedom of worship, dear to you, 
Is dear to all, and to all is due. 

•• I see the vision of days to come, 

When your beautiful City of the Bay 
Shall be Christian liberty's chosen home, _ 

And none shall his neighbor's rights gainsay. 
The varying notes of worship shall blend 
And as one great prayer to God ascend, 
And hands of mutual charity raise 
Walls of salvation and gates of praise." 



300 



ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER. 



So passed the Quakers through Boston town, 

Whose painful ministers sighed to see 
The walls of their sheep fold tailing down, 

Ami wolves of heresy prowling free. 
Bui the years weni on, and brought no wron 
With milder counsels the State grew strong, 
As outward Letter and inward Light 
Kept tin- balance of truth aright. 



The Puritan spirit perishing not, 

To Concord's yeomen the signal sent, 
And spake in the voice of the cannon-shot 

Thai severed the chains of a continent. 
With its gentler mis-ion of peace and good-will 
The thought of the Quaker is living still, 

And the freedom of soul he prophesied 
Is gospel and law where tlie martyrs died. 









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ST. MARTIN'S SUMMERS 

Though flowers have perished, at the touch 

Of Frost, the early comer, 
I hail the season loved so much, 

The good St. Martin's summer. 

O gracious morn, with rose-red dawn, 
And thin moon curving o'er it! 

The old year's darling, latest born, 
More loved than all before it! 

How flamed the sunrise through the pines ! 

How stretched the birchen shadows, 
Braiding in lone', wind-wavered lines 

The westward sloping meadows ! 

The sweet day, opening as a flower 

Unfolds its petals tender, 
Renews for us at noontide's hour 

The summer's tempered splendor. 

The birds are hushed ; alone the wind, 
That through the woodland searches, 

The red-oak's lingering leaves can find, 
And yellow plumes of larches. 

But still the balsam-breathing pine 

Invites no thought of sorrow, 
No hint of loss from air like wine 

The earth's content can borrow. 

The summer and the winter here 

Midway a truce are holding, 
A soft, consenting atmosphere 

Their tents of peace enfolding. 

The silent woods, the lonely hills, 

Rise solemn in their gladness; 
The quiet that the valley Gils 

Is scarcely joy or sadness. 

How strange ! The autumn yesterday 
In winter's grasp seemed dying; 

On whirling winds from skies of gray 
The early snow was flying. 



And now, while over Nature's mood 

There steals a soft relenting, 

I will not mar the present good, 
Forecasting or lamenting. 

My autumn time and Nature's hold 

A dreamy tryst together, 
And, both grown old, about us fold 

The golden-tissued weather. 

I lean my heart against the day 
To feel its bland caressing; 

I will not let it pass away 
Before it leaves its blessing. 

God's angels come not as of old 
The Syrian shepherds knew them; 

In reddening dawns, in sunset gold, 
And warm noon lights I view them. 

Nor need there is, in times like this 
W 7 hen heaven to earth draws nearer, 

Of wing or song as witnesses 
To make their presence clearer. 

O stream of life, whose swifter flow 

Is of the end forewarning, 
Methinks thy sundown afterglow 

Seems less of night than morning ! 

Old cares grow light; aside I lay 
The doubts and fears that troubled; 

The quiet of the happy day 
Within my soul is doubled. 

That clouds must veil this fair sunshine 

Not less a joy I rind it ; 
Nor less yon warm horizon line 

That winter lurks behind it. 

The mystery <d' the untried days 
I close my eyes from reading; 

His will be done whose darkest ways 
To light and life are leading! 

Less drear the winter night shall be, 
If memory cheer ami hearten 

Its heavy hours with thoughts of thee, 
Sweet summer of St. Martin! 



THE DEAD FEAST OF THE KOL-FOLK. - THE L OST OCCASION, 



301 



THE DEAD FEAST OF THE KOL-FOLKJ 

CHOTA NAGEOOR. 

We have opened the door, 

Once, twice, thrice '. 
We have swepl the floor, 

We have boiled the rice. 
i .inn' hither, come hither! 
( lome Erom the far lands, 
( lome from the star lands, 

Come as before '. 
We lived long together, 
We loved one another: 

Come hark to our life. 
lather, come mother, 
( orne sister and brother, 

Child, husband, and wife, 
For yon we are sighing. 
Come take your old places) 
( ome look in our fares, 
The dead on the dying, 
Come home ! 

We have opened the door, 

Once, twice, thrice! 
We have kindled the coals, 

And Ave boil the rice 
For the feast of souls. 

('nine hither, come hither! 
Think not we fear you, 
Whose hearts are so near you. 
Come tenderly thought on, 
( lome all unforgotten, 
Come from the shadow-lands, 
From the dim meadow-lands 
Where the pale grasses bend 

Low to our sighing. 
Come father, come mother, 
Come sister and brother, 
Come husband and friend, 

The dead to the dying, 
Come home ! 

We have opened the door 

You entered so oft ; 
For the feast of souls 
We have kindled the coals, 

And we boil the rice soft. 
Come you who are dearest 
To us who are nearest. 
Come hither, tome hither, 
From out the wild weather; 
The storm clouds are flying, 
The peepul is sighing; 

Come in from the rain. 
Come father, come mother, 
Come si>ter and brother, 
Come husband and lover, 
Beneath our roof-cover. 

Look on ii- again, 
The dead on the dying, 
Come home ! 

We have opened the door ! 

For the feast of souls 

We have kindled the coals 

We may kindle no more! 
Snake, fever, and famine, 
The curse of the Brahmin, 

The sun and the dew, 
They burn us, they bite us, 
They waste us and smite us; 

Our days are but few ! 
In strange lands far yonder 
To wonder and wander 

We hasten to you. 



List then to our sighing, 
While yet we are here: 

Nor seeing nor hearing, 

We wait without fearing, 
To feel you draw near. 

dead to the dying 
Come home ! 



THE LOST OCCASION. 

Some die too late and some too soon, 

At early morning, heat of noon, 

Or the 'chill evening twilight. Thou, 

Whom the rich heavens did so endow 

With eves of power and .love's own brow, 

With all the massive strength that tills 

Thv home-horizon's granite hills, 

With rarest gifts of heart and head 

From manliest stock inherited 

New England's stateliest type of man, 

In port and speech Olympian; 

Whom no one met, at first, hut took 

A second awed and wondering look 

(As turned, perchance, the eyes of Greece 

On Phidias' unveiled masterpiece); 

Whose words, in simplest home-spun clad, 

The Saxon strength of Csedmon's had, 

With power reserved at need to reach 

The Roman forum's loftiest speech, 

Sweet with persuasion, eloquent 

In passion, cool in argument, 

Or, ponderous, falling on thy foes 

As fell the Norse god's hammer blows, 

Crushing; as if with Talus' flail 

Through Error's logic-woven mail, 

And failing onlv when they tried 

The adamant of the righteous side, — 

Thou, foiled in aim and hope, bereaved 

Of old friends, by the new deceived, 

Too soon for us, too soon for thee, 

Beside thv lonely Northern sea, 

Where long and low the marsh-lands spread, 

Laid wearily down thy august head. 

Thou shouldst have lived to feel below 

Thv feet Disunion's tierce upthrow, — 

The late-sprung mine that underlaid 

Thv -ad concessions vainly made. 

Thou shouldst have seen from Sumter s wail 

The star-flag of the Union fall, 

And armed Rebellion pressing on 

The broken line- of Washington! 

No stronger voice than thine had then 

Called out the utmost might of men, 

To make the Union's charter free 

And strengthen law by liberty. 

How had that stern arbitrament 

To thv grav age youth's vigor lent, 

Shaming ambition's paltry prize 

Before thv disillusioned eyes : 

Breakingthe spell about thee wound 

Like the green withes that Samson bound; 

Redeemine-. in one effort grand. 

Thyself and thv imperilled land! 

Ah*, cruel fate, that closed to thee, 

6 sleeper by the Northern sea, 

The crates of opportunity '. 

God tills the gaps of human need, 

Each crisis brings its word and deed. 

Wise men and strong we did not lack; 

But still, with memory turning back, 

In the dark hours we thought of thee, 

And thv lone grave beside the sea. 



302 



THE EMANCIPATION GROUP. — THE JUBILEE SINGERS. 



Above thai grave the east winds blow, 

And IV the marsh-lands drifting slow 

The sea-fog comes, with evermore 
The wave-wash of a lonely shore, 



And sea-bird's melancholy cry, 

As Nature fain would typify 

The sadness of a closing scene, 

The loss of that which should have been. 

But, where thj native mountains bare 

Their foreheads to diviner air, 

Fit emblem of enduring fame, 

One lofty summit keeps thy name. 

For thee I he cosmic fori es did 

The rearing of that pyramid, 

The prescient ages shaping with 

Fire, il I, and frost thy monolith. 

Sunrise and sunset lay thereon 
With hands of light their benison, 
The stars of midnight pause to sel 

Their jewels in its cor \t. 

And evermore that mountain mass 
Seems climbing from the shadowy pass 
To light, as if to manifest 
Thy nobler self, thy life at best! 




THE EMANCIPATION GROUP. 

BOSTON. 1879. 

Amidst thy sacred effigies 

Of old renown sjive place, 
city, Freedom loved! to his 

Whose hand unchained a race. 

Take the worn frame, that rested not 
Save in a martyr's grave — 

The care-lined lace, that none forgot, 
Bent to the kneeling slave. 

Let man be free! The might}' word 

He spake was not his own; 
An impulse from the Highest stirred 

These chiselled lips alone. 

The cloudy sign, the fiery guide, 

Along his pathway ran, 
And Nature, through his voice, denied 

The ownership of man. 

We rest in peace where these sad e3 r es 

Saw peril, strife, and pain; 
His was the nation's sacrifice, 

And ours the priceless gain. 

symbol of God's will on earth 

As it is done above! 
Bear witness to the cost and worth 
Of justice and of love. 



Stand in thy place and testify 

To coming ages long, 
That truth is stronger than a lie, 

And righteousness than wrong. 



THE JUBILEE SINGERS- 

Voice of a people suffering long, 
The pathos of their mournful song, 
The sorrow of their night of wrong! 

Their cry like that which Israel gave, 
A prayer for one to guide and save. 
Like Moses by the Red Sea's wave! 

'The stern accord her timbrel lent 
To Miriam's note id' triumph sent 
O'er Egypt's sunken armament! 

The tramp that startled camp and town, 
And shook the walls of Slavery down, 
The spectral march of old John Brown! 

The storm that swept through battle-days, 

The triumph after long delays, 

The bondmen giving God the praise! 

Voice of a ransomed race, sing on 
Till Freedom's every right is won, 
And Slavery's every wrong undone! 



WITHIN THE GATE. — THE KHAN'S DEVIL. 



303 



WITHIN THE GATE. 



We sat together, last May-day, and talked 
Of the dear friends who walked 

Beside us, sharers of the hopes and fears 
( >f five and forty wars 

Since first we met in Freedom's hope forlorn, 

And heard her battle-horn 
Sound through the valleys of the sleeping North, 

Calling her children forth, 

And youth pressed forward with hope-lighted 
eyi s, 

And age, with forecast wise 
Of the long strife before the triumph won, 

Girded his armor on. 

Sadly, as name by name we called the roll, 
We heard the dead-bells toll 

For the unanswering many, and we knew 
The living were the few. 

And we, who waited our own call before 

The inevitable door, 
Listened and looked, as all have done, to win 

Some token from within. 

No sign we saw, we heard no voices call; 

The impenetrable wall 
Cast down its shadow, like an awful doubt. 

On all who sat without. 

< If many a hint of life beyond the veil, 

And many a ghostly I ale 
Wherewith the ages spanned the gulf between 

The seen and the unseen, 

Seeking from omen, trance, and dream to gain 

Solace to doubtful pain, 
And touch, witli groping hands, the garment hem 

Of truth sufficing them, 

We talked: and. turning from the sore unrest 

Of an all-baffling quest, 
We thought of holy lives that from us passed 

Hopeful unto the last, 

As if they saw beyond the river of death, 

Like him of Nazareth, 
The many mansions of the Eternal days 

Lift up their gates of praise. 

And, hushed to silence by a reverent awe, 

Methought, friend, I saw 
In thy true life of word, and work, and thought 

The proof of all we sought. 

Did we not witness in the life of thee 

Immortal prophecy ? 
And feel, when with thee, that thy footsteps trod 

An everlasting road ? 

Not for brief days thy generous sympathies, 
Thy scorn ot selfish ease ; 

Not for the | r prize (if an earthly goal 

Thy strong uplift of soul. 

Than thine was never turned a fonder heart 

'IVi nature and to art 
In fair-formed Hellas in her -olden prime, 

Thy Philothea's time. 

Yet, loving beauty, thou couldst pass it by, 
And for the poor deny 



Thyself, and see thy fresh, sweel flower of fame 
Wither in blight and blame. 

Sharing His love u1m.1h.1iU in His embrace 

The lowliest of our race. 
Sure the Divine economy must be 

Conservative of thee! 

For truth must live with truth, self-sacrifice 

Seek .nit its great allies; 
Good must find good by gravitation sure. 

And lo\ e u [til love endure. 

And so, since thou hast passed within the gate 

Whereby awhile I wait, 
I give blind grief and Minder sense the lie : 

Thou hast not lived to die! 



THE KHAN'S DEVIL. 

The Khan came from Bokhara town 
To Hamza, santon of renown. 

'' My head i- sick, my hands are weak; 
Thy help, U holy man, 1 seek." 

In silence marking for a space 

The Khan's red eyes and purple face, 

Thick voice, and loose, uncertain tread, 
'• Thou hast a devil! " Hamza said. 

" Allah furl. id! " exclaimed the Khan. 
'• Rid me of him at once, man ! " 

" Nay," Hamza said. ; ' no spell of mine 
( 'an .-lay that cursed thing of thine. 

" Leave feast and wine, go forth and drink 
Water of healing on the brink 

" Where clear and cold from mountain snows. 
The Nahr el Zeben downward flows. 

" Six unions remain, then come to me; 
May Allah's pity go with thee!" 

Awe-struck, from feast and wine, the Khan 
Went forth where Nahr el Zeben ran. 

Roots were his food, the desert dust 
His bed, the water quenched his thirst, 

And when the sixth moon's scimetar 
Cursed sharp above the evening star, 

He sought again the santon's door, 
Not weak and trembling as before, 

But strong of limb and clear of brain; 
"Behold," he said, "the fiend is slain." 

"Nay," Hamza answered, " starved and drowned, 

The curst one lines in death-like swound. 

"But evil breaks the strongest gyves, 
And jins like him have charmed lives. 

•• « )ne beaker of the juice of grape 
May call him up in living shape. 

" When the red wine of Badakshan 
Sparkles for thee, beware, O Khan ! 

" With water quench the tire within, 
And drown each day thy devilkin! " 



304 



ABRAM MOItmsuX. 



rhenceforth the great Khan shunned the cup 

As Shii. m'- ov ii. ii fh offi red up, 

With laughing eyes and jewelled hands, 
By ^ ;n kand a maid and Samarcand's. 

\n,l. in the loftj vestibule 
( ii the medre oi Kaut b Kodul, 

The Btudents of the holy law 
\ goldi ! tablel saw, 

Willi these words, bv a cunning hand, 
Graved on it al the Khan's command : 

•■ in Allah's name, to him who hath 
A de\ il, Khan el Hame l saith, 

•• \\ i , |\ our Prophet cursed the vhrt : 
The fiend thai loves the breath of \\ ine 

■• No prayer can slay, no marabou! 
Nor Meccan den is can drive out. 

•• l. Khan el Hamed, know the charm 
Thai robs him of his po\Ver to harm. 

" Drown him, <> Islam's child ! the spoil 
To save thee lies in tan! and well! " 



\r.i;\M MORRISON. 

'Midst the men and things which will 
Haunt an old man's memory still, 
Drollest, quaintest of them all, 
With a boj laugh I recal] 

Good old Ahram Morrison. 

When the Grist and Rolling Mill 

Gn <l and rumbled by Po Hill, 

Ami the old red school house stood 
Midway in the Powow's flood, 

Here dwelt Abram Morrisou. 

From the Beach to far beyond 
Hoar Hill, Lion's Mouth and Pond, 
Marvellous to our tough old -look, 
< Ships o' the Smglo Saxon block, 

Seemed the ( leltic Morrison 

Mudknock, Balmaw histle, all 
Only knew the Yankee drawl, 
No\ or brogue was heard till when, 
Foremost of his countrvmen. 

Hither fame Friena Morrison ; 

Yankee born, of alien blood, 
Kin of Ins had well withstood 
Pope and King w ith pike and ball 
l lorry's leaguered wall, 
As became the Morrisons. 

Wandering down from Nutfield woods 
With hi> household and his goods, 
Never \\ as ii clearlj told 
I low within our quiet fold 

i lame to be a Morrison. 

( >nce a soldier, blame him nol 
Thai the Quaker he forgot, 
When, to think of battles Won, 
Ami the red coats on the ran. 

hed aloud Friend Morrison. 



From gray Lewis over sea 
Bore his sires i heir famih I ree, 

On lh hoi ii 

Grafting Irish mirth ami w ii, 

\n'i the brogue oi Morrison 

Half a genius, quick in plan, 
Blundering like an Irishman, 
But with canny shrewdness hail 
By his far off Scotch descent, 

Such Was Ahram .Mori i 

Back and forth to daih m 

Rode his cherished pi"- on wheels, 

And to all who r;i lo see : 

i for < he pig an 1 me. 
Sure ii is," said Morrison 

Simple-hearted, hoy o'er-grown, 

Willi a humor quite his own, 
( >i • sober tepping ways, 

Spei oh and look and caul inns phrase, 

Slow to loam was Morrison. 

Much we loved his stories told 

Oi i ml n i t range and old, 

Whore the fairies danced till daw n, 
\nd the goblin Leprecaun 

Looked, we thought, like Moi 

Or wild tales of lend and fight, 
Witch and troll and second sight 
Whispered still w here Stoi noway 
Loo] aero il tormj ba> . 

( hue the home of Morrisons 

First was he to sing the praise 
( >f the I'owow 's winding waj s ; 
\ ml our si raggling village took 
City grandeur to the look 

( M il- poet Morrison. 

All his words have perished. Shame 
( )n the saddle-bags of lame. 
That the\ bring nol to our time 
One poor couplet of the rh} me 

Made by Ahram Morrison ! 

When, on calm and lair First Days, 
Rattled down our one-horse chaise 
Through the blossomed apple-boughs 
To the old, brow n meeting house, 

There was ^.bram Morrison. 

Underneath his hat's broad brim 
Pi ered the queer old face of him; 
Ami with Irish jauntiness 
Swung the coat tails of the dress 

Worn by Ahram Morrison. 

Still, in memory, on his feet, 

I es ning oYr the elders' seat, 
Mm. hi;- h ith b oiemn drone, 
Celtic accents all his own, 

Rises Uiuiin Morrison. 

•■ Don't," he ' pleading, " don't ye go, 
Dear young friends, to sight and show ; 
Don't run after elephants, 
Learned pig9 and presidents 

And the likes ! " said Morrison. 

On hi- well-worn theme intent, 
Simple, child like, innocent, 
Heaven forgi> e the half cheeked smile 
Of our careless boj hood, while 

Listening to Friend Morrison ' 



VOYAGE OF THE JETTIK. 



305 



We have learned in later days 
Truth may speak in simplest phra e; 
That the man is not the less 
For quaint w aj - and homi spun dress, 
Thanks to A brain Morrison ! 

Nol to pander nor to please 
< iome the needed homilies, 
Willi no lot'i \ argument 
Is the fitting message sent 

Through such lips as Morrison's. 

Dead and gone ! Bui while its track 
Powoyi keeps to Merrimack, 



While 1'ip Hill is still on guard, 
Looking land and ocean ward, 

They shall tell oi Morrison ! 

After half a centurj 's lapse, 
We are w i ser now , perhaps, 
Bui \\ e miss our streets amid 
Something vs hich the past has hid, 
Losl w iih Abram Morrison. 

Gone forever « ith the queer 
< Characters of thai old 3 eai ! 

Now the many are as one ; 

Broken is the mould that run 

Men tike Abram Morrison. 




VOYAGE OF Till. JETTIES 

A shallow stream, from fountains 
1 teep in the Sandw ich mountains, 

Elan lakeward Bearcamp River; 
And, between it- flood-torn shores, 
Sped by sail or urged by oars 

No keel had vexed it e\ er. 

Alone the dead trees yielding 
To the dull axe Time is wielding, 

The shy mink and the otter, 
Ami golden leaves and red, 
By countless autumns shed, 

Had floated down its water. 

From the gray rocks <>f ('ape Ann, 
Came a skilled sea-faring man, 

With hi< dory, to the right place; 
hill and plain he broughl her, 
Where 1 he boal less Bearcamp water 

('nines winding down from White-Face. 

Quoth the skipper: " Ere she floats forth, 
1 'm sure my pretty boat 's worth 

At least, a name as pretty." 
( >n her painted side he wrote it. 
And the flag thai o'er her floated 
ilofl the name of Ji ttie. 

On a radiant morn of summer, 
Elder gui -1 and latesl comer 

Saw her wed the lieareamp water; 

Heard the name the skipper gave her, 
And the answer to the favor 
From the Bay Slate's graceful daughl tr. 

Then, a singer, richly gifted, 
Her charmed voice uplifted ; 

And the « l-thrush and song-sparrow, 

Listened, dumb with ea\ ious pain, 

1 I at and sweel refrain 

Whose notes they could not borrow. 

Then the skipper plied hi 
And from off the shelving shore, 
20 



( Hided out the strange explorer; 
Floating on, -he knew nol whither, 
The tawny sands beneath her, 

The great hills watching o'er her. 

On. where the stream Hows quiet 
As the meadows' margins by it, 

( >r widens oul to hoi row a 
New life from thai wild w ater, 
The mountain g iant 's daughter, 

The pine-besung < Ihocot ua. 

Or, mid the tangling cumber 
And pack of mountain lumber 

That spring floods downward force, 
< u er sunken suae,-, and bar 
Where the grating shallow- are, 

'I he good boal held hi r course. 

Under the pine-dark highlands, 
Around the vine-hung islands, 

She ploughed her crooked furrow ; 
And her rippling and her lurches 
Scared the river eel and perches, 

\nd the musk-rat ill his burrow. 

I".\ ery sober clam below her, 
Every sage and grave pearl-grower, 

Shut his rusty valves the ti ' 
Crow called to crow complaining, 
And old tortoises sat craning 

Their leathern necks to sight her. 

So, to where the still lake glasses 
The misty mountain masses 

Rising dim and distant northward, 
And. with faint-drawn shadow pictures, 
Low shores, and dead pine spectres, 

Blends the skj ward and the earthward, 

On she glided, overladen, 
With merry ma id maiden 

Sending back their song and laughter, 
While, perchance, a phantom crew, 
In a ghostly birch canoe. 

Paddled dumb and swiftly after! 



306 



OUR AUTOCRAT. 




And the bear on Ossipee 
Climbed the topmost crag to see 

The strange thing drifting under; 
And, through the haze of August, 
Passaconaway and Paugus 

Looked down in sleepy wonder. 

All the pines that o'er her hung 
In mimic sea-tones sung 

The song familiar to her; 
And the maples leaned to screen her, 
And the meadow-grass seemed greener, 

And the breeze more soft to woo her. 

The lone stream mystery-haunted, 
To her the freedom granted 

To scan its every feature, 
Till new and old were blended, 
And round them both extended 

The loving arms of Nature. 

Of these hills the little vessel 
Henceforth is part and parcel ; 

And on Bearcamp shall her log 
Be kept, as if by George's 
Or Grand Menan, the surges 

Tossed her skipper through the fog. 

And I. who, half in sadness, 
Recall the morning gladness 

< »!' life, at evening time, 
By chance, onlooking idly, 
Apart from all so widely, 

Have set her voyage to rhyme. 

Dies now the gay persistence 
Of song and laugh, in distance; 

Alone with me remaining 
The stream, the quiet meadow, 
The hills in shine and shadow, 

The sombre pines complaining. 



And, musing here, I dream 
Of voyagers on a stream 

From whence is no returning, 
Under sealed orders going, 
Looking forward little knowing, 

Looking back with idle yearning. 

And I pray that every venture 
The port of peace may enter, 

That, safe from snag and fall 
And siren-haunted islet, 
And rock, the Unseen Pilot 

May guide us one and all. 



OUR AUTOCRAT. 

READ AT DR. HOLMES' BREAKFAST. 

His laurels fresh from song and lay, 
Romance, art, science, rich in all, 

And young of heart, how dare we say 
We keep his seventieth festival V 

No sense is here of loss or lack ; 

Before his sweetness and his light 
The dial holds its shadow back, 

The charmed hours delay their flight- 

His still the keen analysis 
Of men and moods, electric wit, 

Free play of mirth, and tenderness 
To heal the slightest wound from it. 

And his the pathos touching all 
Life's sins and sorrows and regrets, 

Its hopes and fears, its final call 
\ i n I rest beneath the violets. 



GARRISON. — A NAME. 



307 



His sparkling surface scarce betrays 
The thoughtful tide beneath it rolled, — 

The wisdom of the latter days. 
And tender memories of the old. 

What shapes and fancies, grave or gay, 
Before us at his bidding come! 

The Treadmill tramp, the One-llorse Shay, 
The dumb despair of Elsie's doom! 

The tale of Avis and the Maid, 
The plea tor lips that cannot speak, 

The holy kiss that Iris laid 
On Little Boston's pallid cheek? 

Long may he live to sing for us 
His sweete-t songs at evening time, 

And, like his Chambered Nautilus, 
To holier heights of beauty climb! 

Though now unnumbered guests surround 
The table that he rules at will, 

Its Autocrat, however crowned, 
Is but our friend and comrade still. 

The world may keep his honored name, 
The wealth of all his varied powers; 

A stronger claim has love than fame, 
And he himself is only ours ! 



GARRISON. 

The storm and peril overpast, 
The hounding hatred shamed and still, 

Go, soul of freedom ! take at last 
The place which thou alone canst till. 

Confirm the lesson taught of old — 
Life saved for self is lost, while they 

Who lose it in His service hold 
The lease of God's eternal day. 

Not for thyself, but for the slave 

Thy words of thunder shook the world; • 

No stilish griefs or hatred gave 
The strength wherewith thy bolts were hurled. 

From lips that Sinai's trumpet blew 

We heard a tender undersong; 
Thy very wrath from pity grew, 

From love of man thy hate of wrong. 

Now past and present are as one; 

The life below is life above; 
Thy mortal years have but begun 

The immortality of love. 

With somewhat of thy lofty faith 

We lay thy outworn garment by, 
Give death but what belongs to death, 

And life the life that cannot die! 

Not for a soul like thine the calm 

of selfish ease and joys of sense; 
But duty, more than crown or palm, 

Its own exceeding recompense. 

Go up and on ! thy day well done, 

Its morning promise well fulfilled, 
Arise to triumphs yet unwon, 

To holier tasks that God has willed. 

Go, leave behind thee all that mars 
The work below of man for man; 



With the white legions of the stars 
Do service such as angels can. 

Wherever wrong shall right denj , 
Or suffering spirits urge their plea, 

Be thine a voice to smite the lie, 
A hand to set the captive free ! 



A NAME. 



TO G. W. P. 



The name the Gallic exile bore, 
St. Malo! from thy ancient mart. 

Became upon our Western shore 
Greenleaf for Feuillevert. 

A name to hear in soft accord 
Of leaves by light winds overrun, 

Or read, upon the greening sward 
Of May, in shade and sun. 

The name my infant ear first heard 
Breathed softly with a mother's kiss; 

His mother's own, no tenderer word 
My father spake than this. 

Xo child have I to bear it on ; 

Be thou its keeper; let it take 
From gifts well used and duty done 

New beauty for thy sake. 

The fair ideals that outran 

My halting footsteps seek and find — 
The flawless symmetry of man, 

The poise of heart and mind. 

Stand firmly where I felt the sway 
Of every wind that fancy flew, 

See clearly where I groped my way, 
Nor real from seeming knew. 

And wisely choose, and bravely hold 
Thy faith unswerved by cross or crown, 

Like "the stout Huguenot of old. 
Whose name to thee comes down. 

As Marot's songs made glad the heart 
Of that lone exile, haply mine 

May in life's heavy hours impart 
Some strength and hope to thine. 

Yet when did Age transfer to Youth 
The hard-gained lessons of its day ? 

Each lip must learn the taste of truth, 
Each foot must feel its way. 

We cannot hold the hands of choice 
That touch or shun life's fateful keys; 

The whisper of the inward voice 
Is more than homilies. 

Dear bov ! for whom the flowers are born, 

Stars 'shine, and happy song-birds sing, 
What can my evening give to morn, 
My winter to thy spring! 

A life not void of pure intent, 

With small desert of praise or blame, 

The love I felt, the good I meant, 
I leave thee with my name. 



308 



BAYARD TAYLOR. — THE MINISTER'S DAUGHTER. 




vJ" 







I 



BAYARD TAYLOR. 



"And where now. Bayard, will thy footsteps 
tend?" 
My sister asked our guest one winter's day. 
Smiling he answered in the Friends' sweet way 
Common t<> both: " Wherever thou shalt send V 
What wouldst thou have me see for thee?" She 
laughed, 
Her dark eyes dancing in the wood-fire's glow: 
" Loffoden isles, the Kilpis, and the low, 
Unsetting sun mi Finmark's fishing-craft." 
"All these and more 1 SOOU shall see for thee! " 
lie answered cheerily: and he kept his pledge 
On Lapland snows, the North Cape's windy 
wedge, 
And Tromso freezing in its winter sea. 

He wciii and came. Lint no man knows the 

track 
Of his last journey, ami he comes not back ! 



lie brought us wonders of the new and old: 
We shared all climes with him. The Arab's 

tent 
Tn him iis story-telling secrel lent. 
And, pleased, we listened to the tale-, he told. 
His task, beguiled with songs (hat shall endure, 
lii manly, honest thoroughness he wrought; 
From humble home-lays to the heights of 
thought 
Slowly he climbed, but every step was sure. 
How, with the generous pride thai friendship 
hath, 
We, who so loved him, saw at last the erown 
Of civic honor on his brows pressed down, 



Rejoiced, and knew not that the gift was death. 
And now for him, whose praise in deafened ear- 
Two nations speak, we answer but with tears! 



Vale of Chester! trod by him so oft, 
Green as thy June turf keep his memory. Let 
Nor wood, nor dell, nor storied stream forget, 

Nor winds that blow round lonely Cedarcroft; 

Let the home voices greet him in the far, 
Strange land that holds him: let the messages 
< >f love pursue him o'er the chartless seas 

And unmapped vastness id' his unknown star! 

Love's language, heard beyond the loud discourse 
Of perishable fame, in ever} sphere 
Itself interprets; ami its utterance here 

Somewhere in God's unfolding universe 
Shall reach our traveller, softening the surprise 
Of his rapt gaze on unfamiliar skies 1 



THE MINISTER'S DAUGHTER. 

In the minister's morning sermon 
1 le had told of the primal fall, 

A 1 1 . 1 how thenceforth the wrath of God 
Rested on each and all. 

And how, of 1 1 is will and pleasure, 

\ II souls, save a eh,, -en few, 
Were doomed to tin- quenchless burning, 

And held in the way thereto. 

Vet never by faith's unreason 

A -aintlier soul was tried. 
And never the harsh old lesson 
A tenderer heart belied. 



MY TRUST. 309 


And, after the painful service 


lint I wish He was good and gentle, 


On that pleasant Sabbath day, 


Kind and loving as you.'' 


He walked with his little daughter 


Through the apple-bloom of May. 


The minister groaned in spirit 




As the tremulous lips of pain 


Sweet in the fresh green meadows 


And wide, wet e\ es uplifted 


Sparrow and blackbird sung; 


Questioned his own in vain. 


Al)n\ c him their tinted petals 




The blossoming orchards hung. 


Bowing his head lie pondered 




The word- of the little one; 


Around on the wonderful -lory 


Had he erred in his life-long teaching? 


The minister looked and smiled; 


Had he wrong to his .Master done? 


" How good is the Lord who gives us 




These gifts from His hand, my child! 


To what grim and dreadful idol 




Had he lent the holiest name ? 


"Behold in the bloom of apples 


Hid his own heart, loving and human, 


And the violets in the sward 


The God of his worship shame ? 


A hint of the old, lost beauty 




Of the Garden of the Lord ! " 


And lo! from the bloom and greenness, 




From the tender skies above, 


Then up spake the little maiden, 


And the face of his little daughter, 


Treading on snow and pink: 


He read a lesson of love. 


"0 father! these pretty blossoms 




Are very u ieked, I think. 


No more a- the cloudy terror 




( »f Sinai's mount of law. 


'• Had there been no < larden of Eden 


But as Christ in the Syrian lilies 


There never had been a fall; 


The vision of God lie saw. 


And if never a tree had blossomed 




God would have loved us all." 


And, as when, in the clefts of Horeb, 




( If old was His presence known, 


"Hush, child ! " the father answered, 


The dread Ineffable Glory 


■• By His decree man fell; 


Was Infinite Goodness alone. 


His ways are in clouds ami darkness. 




But He doeth all things well. 


Thereafter his hearers noted 




In his prayers a tenderer strain, 


"And whether by His ordaining 


And never the gospel of hatred 


To us cometh good or ill, 


Burned on his lips again. 


Joy or pain, or light or shadow, 




We must fear and love Him still." 


And the scoffing tongue was prayerful, 




And the blinded eye- found sight. 


'Oh. I fear Him! " said the dan-liter, 


And hearts, as flint aforetime, 


"And 1 try to love Him, too ; 


Grew soft, in his warmth and light. 




MY TRUST. 

A picture memory brings to me: 
I look across the years an 
Myself beside my mother's knee. 

I feel her gentle hand restrain 

My selfish moods, ami know again 

A child's blind sense of wrong ami pain. 

But wiser now, a man gray grown. 
My childhood's needs are better known, 
My mother's chastening love I own. 



Gray grown, but. in our Father's sight 
A child still groping for the light 
To read His works and ways aright. 

I wait, in His good time to see 
That as my mother dealt with me 
So with His children dealeth He. 

I bow myself beneath His hand: 
That pain itself was wisely planned 
I feel, and partly understand. 

The joy that comes in sorrow's guise, 
The sweet pains of self-sacrifice, 
I would not have them otherwise. 



S1U 



THE TRAILING ARBUTUS. — THE WORD. — THE BOOK. 




And what were life and death if sin 
Knew not the dread rebuke within, 
The pang of merciful discipline? 

Not with thy proud despair of old, 
Crowned stoic of Rome's noblest mould! 
Pleasure and pain alike I hold. 

I suffer with no vain pretence 
Of triumph over flesh and sense, 
Yet trust the grievous providence, 

How dark soe'er it seems, may tend, 
P>\ ways I cannot comprehend, 
To some unguessed benignant end; 

That every loss and lapse may gain 
The clear-aired heights by steps of pain, 
And never cross is borne in vain. 



THE TRAILING ARBUTUS. 

I wandered lonely where the pine-trees made 
Against the bitter East their barricade, 

And, guided by its sweet 
Perfume, I found, within a narrow dell, 
The trailing spring flower tinted like a shell 

Amid dry leaves and mosses at my feet. 

From under dead boughs, lor whose loss the pines 
Moaned ceaseless overhead, the blossoming vines 

Lifted their glad surprise, 
W'hil.' yet the bluebird smoothed in leafless trees 
His feathers ruffled by the chill sea-breeze, 

And snow-drifts lingered under April skies. 

As, pausing, o'er the lonely dower I bent, 

I thought of lives thus lowly, clogged and pent, 

Which yet find room, 
Through care and cumber, coldness and decay, 
To lend a sweetness to the ungenial day 

And make the sad earth happier for their bloom. 



BY THEIR WORKS. 

Call him not heretic whose works attest 
His faith in goodness by no creed confessed. 
Whatever in love's name is truly done 
To free the bound and lift the fallen one, 
Is done to Christ. Whoso in deed and word 
Is not against Him, labors for our Lord. 
When lie, who. sad and weary, longing sore 
For love's sweet service, sought the sisters' door, 
One saw the heavenly, one the human guest, 
But who shall say which loved the Master best? 



THE WORD. 

Voice of the Holy Spirit, making known 
Man to himself, a witness swift and sure, 
Warning, approving, true and wise and pure, 

Counsel and guidance that misleadeth none! 

By thee the mystery of life is read; 
"The picture-writing of the world's gray seers, 
The myths and parables of the primal years, 

Whose letter kills, by thee interpreted 

Take healthful meanings titled to our needs, 
And in the soul's vernacular express 
The common law of simple righteousness. 

Hatred of cant and doubt of human creeds 

May well he felt: the unpardonable sin 

Is to deny the Word of God within! 



THE BOOK. 
Gallery of sacred pictures manifold, 

A minster rich in holy effigies, 
And bearing on entablature and frieze 
The hieroglyphic oracles of old. 



REQUIREMENT. — HELP. — UTTERANCE. — CONDUCT. 



311 



Along its transept aureolcd martyrs sit; 
And the low chancel side-lights half acquaint 
The eye with shrines of prophet, bard, and 
saint, 
Their age-dimmed tablets (raced in doubtful writ! 
But only when on form ami word obscure 
Falls from above the white supernal light 
We read the mystic characters aright, 
And life informs the silent protraiture, 
Until we pause at last, awe-held, before 
The One ineffable P'ace, love, wonder, and adore. 



REQUIREMENT. 

We live by Faith; but Faith is not the slave 
Of text and legend. Reason's voice and God' 
Nature's and Duty's, never are at odds. 
What asks our Father of His children, save 
Justice and mercy and humility, 
A reasonable service of good deeds, 
Pure living, tenderness to human needs, 
Reverence and trust, and prayer for light to see 
The Master's footprints in our daily ways V 
No knotted scourge nor sacrificial knife, 
But the calm beauty of an ordered life 
\Yhixe very breathing is un worded praise! — 
A life that stands as all true lives have stood, 
Firm-rooted iu the faith that God is Good. 



HELP. 



Dream not Soul, that easy is the task 
Thus set before thee. If it proves at length, 
As well it may, beyond thy natural strength, 

Faint not, despair not. As a child may ask 

A father, pray the Everlasting Good 

For light and guidance midst the subtle snares 
Of sin thick planted in life's thoroughfares, 

For spiritual strength and moral hardihood; 

Still listening, through the noise of time and 
sense, 
To the still whisper of the Inward Word ; 
Bitter in blame, sweet in approval heard, 

Itself its own confirming evidence: 

To health of soul a voice to cheer and please, 

To guilt the wrath of the Eumenides. 



UTTERANCE. 

But what avail inadequate words to reach 
The innermost of Truth ? Who shall essay, 
Blinded and weak, to point and lead the way, 
Or solve its mystery in familiar speech ? 
Yet, if it be that something not thy own, 

Some shadow of the Thought to which our 

schemes, 
Creeds, cult, and ritual are at best but dreams. 
Is even to thy unworthiness made known, 
Thou mayst not hide wdiat yet thou shouldst not 
dare 
To utter lightly, lest on lips of thine 
The real seem false, the beauty undivine. 
So, weighing duty in the scale of prayer, 
Give what seems given thee. It may prove a seed 
Of goodness dropped in fallow-grounds of need. 



INSCRIPTIONS. 



ON A SUN-DIAL. 

FOR DR. HENRY I. P.OWDITCH. 

With warning hand I mark Time's rapid flight 
From life's glad morning to its solemn night; 
Yet, through the dear (lod's love, I also show 
There 's Light above me bv the Shade below. 



ON A FOUNTAIN. 

FOR DOROTHEA L. DIX. 

Stranger and traveller 

Drink freely, and bestow 
A kindly thought on her 

Who bade this fountain flow, 
Yet hath no other claim 

Than as the minister 
Of blessing in God's name. 

Drink, and in His peace go! 



ORIENTAL MAXIMS. 



PARAPHRASE OF SANSCRIT TRANSLATIONS. 
THE INWARD JUDGE. 

FROM "INSTITUTES OF MANU." 

The sotd itself its awful witness is. 

Say not in evil doing, " No one sees," 

And so offend the conscious One within, 

Whose car can hear the silences of sin 

Ere they find voice, whose eyes unsleeping see 

The secret motions of iniquity. 

Nor in thy folly say, " I am alone." 
For, seated in thy heart, as on a throne, 
The ancient Judge and Witness liveth still, 
To note thy act and thought; and as thy ill 
Or good goes from thee, far beyond thy reach, 
The solemn Doomsman's seal is set on each. 



LAYING UP TREASURE. 

FROM THE "MAHABHARATA." 

Before the Ender comes, whose charioteer 
Is swift or slow Disease, lay up each year 
Thy harvests of well-doing, wealth that kings 
Nor thieves can take away. When all the things 
Thou callest thine, goods," pleasures, honors fall, 
Thou in thy virtue shalt survive them all. 



CONDUCT. 

FROM THE "MAHABHARATA." 

Heed how thou livest. Do no act by day 
Which from the night shall drive thy peace away 
In months of sun so live that monf li~ of rain 
Shall still be happy. Evermore restrain 
Evil and cherish good, so shall there be 
Another and a happier life for thee. 



NOTES. 



Note 1, page 11. 

Mogg Megone, or Hegone, was a leader among 
the Saco Indians, in the Woody war of 1677. He 
attacked and captured the garrison at Black 
Point, October 12th of that year; and cut off, at 
the same time, a party of Englishmen near Saco 
River. From a deed signed by this Indian in 1 604, 
and from other circumstances, it seems that, pre- 
vious to the war, he had mingled much wit I the 
colonists. On this account, he was probably 
selected by the principal sachems as their agent 
in the treaty signed in November, 1070. 

Note 2, page 11. 

Baron de St. Castine came to Canada in 1644. 
Leaving his civilized companions, he plunged into 
the great wilderness' and settled among the 
Penobscot Indians, near the mouth of their 
noble river. He here took for his wives the 
daughters of the great Modocawando, — the most 
powerful sachem of the East. His castle was 
plundered by Governor Andros, during his reckless 
administration; and the enraged Baron is sup- 
posed to have excited the Indians into open hos- 
tility to the English. 

Note 3, page 11. 

The owner and commander of the garrison at 
Black Point, which Mogg attacked and plundered. 
He was an old man at the period to which the tale 
relates. 

Note 4, page 11. 

Major Phillips, one of the principal men of the 
Colony. His garrison sustained a long and terrible 
siege by the savages. As a magistrate and a 
gentleman, he exacted of his plebeian neighbors 
a remarkable degree of deference. The Court 
Records of the settlement inform us that an indi- 
vidual was fined for the heinous offence of saying 
that *' Major Phillips's mare was as lean as an 
Indian dog." 

Note 5, page 11. 

Captain Harmon, of Georgiana, now York, was, 
for many years, the terror of the Eastern In- 
dians. In one of his expeditions up the Kennebec 
River, at the head of a party of rangers, he dis- 
covered twenty of the savag s asleep by a, large 
lire. Cautiously creeping t .wards th m until he 
was certain of his aim, he ordered his men to 
single out their objects. The first discharge killed 
or mortally wounded the whole number of the 
unconscious sleepers. 



Note 6, page 11. 

Wood Island, near the mouth of the Saco. It 
was visited by the Sieur de Monts and Cham- 
plain, in 1603. The following extract, from the 
journal of the latter, relates to it: " Having left 
the Kennebec, we ran along the coast to the 
westward, and cast anchor under a small island, 
near the mainland, where we saw twenty or more 
natives. I here visited an island, beautifully 
clothed with a tine growth of forest trees, partic- 
ularly of the oak and walnut ; and overspread 
with vines, that, in their season, produce excel- 
lent grapes. We named it the island of Bacchus." 
— Les Voyages de Sieur Champlain, Liv. 2, c. 8. 

Note 7, page 11. 

John Bonython was the son of Richard Bony- 
thon, Gent., one of the most efficient and able 
magistrates of the Colony. John proved to be " a 
degenerate plant. " In 1635, we find, by the Court 
Records, that, for some offence, he was fined 40s. 
In 1040, he was fined for abuse toward R. Gibson, 
the minister, and Mary his wife. Soon after he 
was fined for disorderly conduct in the house of 
his father. In 1045, the "Great and General 
Court " adjudged John Bonython outlawed, and 
incapable of any of his Majesty's laws, and pro- 
claimed him a rebel." (Court Records of the 
Province, 1645.) In 1651, he bade defiance to the 
laws of Massachusetts, and was again outlawed. 
He acted independently of all law and authority ; 
and hence, doubtless, his burlesque title of " The 
Sagamore of Saco," which has come down to 
the present generation in the following epitaph : — 

" Here lies Bonython ; the Sagamore of Saco, 
He lived a rogue, and died a knave, and went to 
Hobomoko." 

By some means or other, he obtained a large estate. 
In this poem, I have taken some liberties with 
him, not strictly warranted by historical facts, 
although the conduct imputed to him is in keeping 
with his general character. Over the last years 
of his life lingers a deep obscurity. Even the 
manner of his death is uncertain. He was sup- 
posed to have been killed by the Indians ; but 
this is doubted by the able and indefatigable 
author of the History of Saco and Biddeford. — 
Part L, p. 115. 

Note 8, page 11. 

Foxwell's Brook flows from a marsh or bog, 
called the " Heath," in Saco, containing thirteen 
hundred acres. On this brook, and surrounded 
by wild and romantic scenery, is a beautiful water- 
fall, of more than sixty feet. 



314 



NOTES. 



Note 9, page 12. 

Hiacoomcs, the first Christian preacher on 
Martha's Vineyard; for a biography of whom the 

reader is referred to Increase Mayhew's account 
of the Praying Indians, 1726. The following is 
I ni him : " One Lord's day, after meeting, 
where Hiacoomes had been preaching, there came 
in a Powwaw very angry, and said, 'I know all 
the meeting Indians are liars. You say you don't 
care for the Powwaws'; — then calling two or 
three of them by name, he railed at them, and 
told them thej were deceived, for the Powwaws 
could kill all the meeting Indians, if they Bet 
about it. But Hiacoomes told him that he would 
be in the midst of all the Powwaws in the island, 
and ih y simul I do the utmost they could against 
him; and when they should do their worst by their 
witchcraft to kill him, he would without feat set 
himself against them, by remembering Jehovah. 
He told them also he did put all the Powwaws 
under his heel. Such was the faith of this good 
man. Nor were these Powwaws ever able to do 
these Christian Indians any hurt, though others 
were frequently hurt and killed by them." — 
May hew, pp. U, 7, c. i. 

Note 10, page 13. 

" The tooth-ache," says Roger Williams in his 
observations upon the language and customs of 
the New England tribes, " is the only paine which 
will force their stoute hearts to cry." He after- 
wards remarks that even the Indian women never 
cry as he has heard "some of their men in this 
paine." 

Note 11, page 14. 

Wuttamuttata, " Let us drink." Weekan, "It 
is sweet." Vide Roger Williams's Key to the 
Indian Language, "in that parte of America 
called New England." London, 1043, p. 35. 

Note 12, page 14. 

Wetuomanit, — a house god, or demon. " They 
— the Indians — have given me the names of 
thirty-seven gods which I have, all which in their 
solemne Worships they invocate ! " R. Williams's 
Briefe Observations of the Customs, Manners, 
Worships, &c, of the Natives, in Peace and 
Wane, m Life and Death : on all which is added 
Spiritual Observations, General and Particular, 
of Chiefe and Special use — upon all occasions — 
to all the English inhabiting these parts ; yet 
Pleasant and Profitable to the view of all Mene. — 
p. 110, c. 21. 

Note 13, page 15. 

Mt. Desert Island, the Bald Mountain upon 
which overlooks Frenchman's and Penobscot Bay. 
It was upon this Island that the Jesuits made their 
earliest settlement. 

Note 14, page 15. 

Father Hennepin, a missionary among the 
Iroquois, mentions that the Indians believed him 
to be a conjurm-, and that they were particularly 
afraid of a blight silver chalice which he had in 
his possession. " The Indians," says Pere Jerome 
Lallamant, " fear us as the greatest sorcerers on 
earth." 

Note 15, page 16. 

Bomazeen is spoken of by Penhallow, as "the 
famous warrior and chieftain of Nor ridge wock." 
He was killed in the attack of the English upon 
Norridgewock, in 1724. 



Note 16, page 16. 

Pere Ralle. or Rasles, was one of the most 
zealous and indefatigable of that band of Jesuit 
missionaries who, at the beginning of the seven- 
teenth century, penetrated the bursts of America, 
with the avowed object of converting the heat hen 
The first rel gious mission of the Jesuits, to the 
savages in North America, was in Kill. The zeal 
of the fathers for the conversion of the Indians 
to the Catholic faith knew no bounds. For this, 
they plunged into the depths of the wilderness : 
habituated themselves to all the hardships and 
privations of the natives: suffered cold, hunger, 
and some of them death itself, by the extremesl 
tortures. Peic Brebeuf, after laboring in the 
cause of his mission for twenty years, togethei 
with his companion, Pere Lallamant, was burn d 
alive. To these might be added the names of 
those Jesuits who were put to death by the Iro- 
quois, — Daniel, Gamier, Buteaux, La Hibori rde, 
Goupil, Constantin, and Liegeouis. "For bed," 
says Father Lallamant, in his Relation '/< ce qui 
x'csi dans le pays des Huron*, li>40, c. 3, "we 
have nothing but a miserable piece of bark of a 
tree ; for nourishment, a handful or two of corn, 
either roasted or soaked in water, which seldom 
satisfies our hunger ; and after all, not venturing 
to perforin even the ceremonies of our religion, 
without being considered as sorcerers." Their 
success among the natives, however, by no means 
equalled their exertions. Pere Lallamant says: 
" With respect to adult persons, in good health, 
there is little apparent success ; on the contrary, 
there have been nothing but storms and whirl- 
winds from that quarter. " 

Sebastian Ralle established himself, some time 
about the year 1G70, at Norridgewock. where he 
continued more than forty years. He was ac- 
cused, and perhaps not without justice, of excit- 
ing his praying Indians against the English, whom 
he looked upon as the enemies, not only of his 
king, but also of the Catholic religion. He was 
killed by the English, in 1724, at the foot of the 
cross which his own hands had planted. This 
Indian church was broken up, and its members 
either killed outright or dispersed. 

In a letter written by Ralle to his nephew he 
gives the following account of his church., and 
his own labors : " All my converts repair to the 
church regularly twice every day ; first, very 
early in the morning, to attend mass, and again 
in the evening, to assist in the prayers at sunset. 
As it is necessary to fix the imagination of 
savages, whose attention is easily distracted, I 
have composed prayers, calculated to inspire them 
with just sentiments of the august sacrifice of 
our altars : they chant, or at least recite them 
almd, during mass. Besides preaching to them 
on Sundays and saints' days, 1 seldom let a work- 
ing-day pass, without making a concise exhorta- 
tion, for the purpose of inspiring them with 
horror at those vices to which they are most ad- 
dicted, or to confirm them in the practice of some 
particular virtue." — Vide Lettres Edifiante set 
Cur., Vol. VI., p. 127. 

Note 17, page 18. 

The character of Ralle has probably never been 
correctly delineated. By his brethren of the 
Romish Church, ho has been nearly apotheosized. 
On the other hand, our Puritan historians have 
represented him as a demon in human form. He 
was undoubtedly sincere in his devotion to the 
interests of his chinch, and not over-scrupulous as 
to tiie means of advancing those interests. " The 
French," says the author of the History of Saco 
an. I Biddeford, " after the peace of 1713, secretly 
promised to supply the Indians with arms and 
ammunition, if they would renew hostilities. 



NOTES, 



315 



nil 



Their principal agent was the celebrated Ralle, 
the French Jesuit." — p. 215. 

Note 18, page 19. 

Hertel do Rouville was an active and unsparing 
enemy of the English. He was tae leader of the 
combined French and Indian forces which de- 
stroyed Deerfield and massacred its inhabitants, 
in 17J3. He was afterwards killed in the attack 
upon Haverhill. Tradition says that, on examin- 
ing his dead body, his head and face were found 
to lie perfectly smooth, without the slightest ap- 
pearance of hair or beard. 

Note 19, page 19. 

Cowesass ? — tavihich wessascen ? Are j 
afraid ? — why fear you ? 

Note 20, page 20. 

Winnepurkit, otherwise called George, Sachem 
of Saugus, married a daughter of Passaconaway, 
the great Pennacook chieftain, in 1(3(52. The 
.wedding took place at Pennacook (now Concord, 
N. H.), and the ceremonies closed with a. great 
feast. According to the usages of the chiefs, 
Passaconaway ordered a select number of his men 
to accompany the newly-married couple to the 
dwelling of the husband, where in turn there was 
another great least. Some time after, the wife 
of W'mnepurkit expressing a desire to visit her 
father's house, was permitted to go, accompanied 
by a brave escort of her husband's chief men. 
But when she wished to return, her father sent a 
messenger to Saugus, informing her husband, and 
asking him to come and take her away. He re- 
turned for answer that he had escorted his wife 
to her father's house in a style that became a 
chief, and that now, if she wished to return, her 
father must send her back in the same way. This 
Passaconaway refused to do, and it is said that 
here terminated the connection of his daughter, 
with the Saugus chief. — Vide Morton's New 

Note 21, page 22. 

This was the name which the Indians of New 
England gave to two or three of their principal 
chiefs, to whom all their inferior sagamores 
acknowledged allegiance. Passaconaway seems to 
have been one of these chiefs. His residence was 
at Pennacook. (Mass. Hist. Coll., Vol. III., pp. 
21,22.) "He was regarded," says Hubbard, "as 
a g eat sorcerer, and his fame was widely spread. 
It was said of him that he could cause a green 
leaf to grow in winter, trees to dance, water to 
burn, &c. He was, undoubtedly, one of those 
shrewd and powerful men whose achievements 
are always regarded by a barbarous people as the 
result of supernatural aid. The Indians gave to 
such the names of Powahsor Panisees." 

"The Panisees are men of great courage and 
wis [om, and to these the Devill appeareth more 
familiarly than to others." — Winslow's Relation. 

Note 22, page 23. 

" The Indians," says Roger Williams, "have a 
god whom they call Wetuomanit, who presides 
over the household." 

Note 23, page 24. 

There are rocks in the river at the Falls of 
Amoskeag, in the cavities of which, tradition 



says, the Indians formerly stored and concealed 
their corn. 

Note 24, page 25. 

The Spring God. — See Roger Williams's Key, 



Note 25, page 26. 

" Mat wonck kunna-monee." We shall see thee 
or her no more. — Vide Roger Williams's Key to 
the Indian Language, 

Note 26, page 2(5. 

"The Great South West God."— See Roger 
11 imams' 1 s Observations, ike. 

Note 27, page 27. 

The celebrated Captain Smith, after resigning 
the government of the Colony in Virginia, in his 
capacity of " Admiral of New England," made a 
careful survey of the coast from Penobscot to 
Cape Cod, in the summer of 1614. 

Note £8, page 27. 

Lake Winnipiseogee, — The Smile of the Great 
Spirit, — the source of one of the branches of the 
Merrimack. 

Note 29, page 27. 

Captain Smith gave to the promontory, now 
called Cape Ann, the name of Tragabizanda, in 
memory of his young and beautiful mistress of 
that name, who, while he was a captive at Con- 
stantinople, like Desdemona, "loved him for the. 
dangers he had passed." 

Note 30, page 27. 

Some three or four years since, a fragment of a 
statue, rudely chiselled from dark gray stone, was 
found in the town of Bradford, on the Merrimack. 
Its origin must be left entirely to conjecture. 
The fact that the ancient Northmen visited New 
England, some centuries before the discoveries of 
Columbus, is now very generally admitted. 

Note 31, page "A. 

De Soto, in the sixteenth century, penetrated 
into the wilds of the new world in search of gold 
and the fountain of perpetual youth. 

Note 32, page 38. 

Toussaint L'Ouverture, the black chieftain 
of Hayti, was a slave on the plantation " de 
Libertas," belonging to M. Bayou. When the 
rising of the negroes took place, in 1791, ToTJS- 
SAiNT refused to join them until he had aided. M. 
Bayotj and his family to escape to Baltimore. 
The white man had discovered in Toussaint many 
noble qualities, and had instructed him m some 
of the first branches of education ; and the preser- 
vation of his life was owing to the negro's grati- 
tude for this kindness. 

In 1797, Toussaint L'Ouverture was appointed, 
by the French government, General-in-Chief of 
the armies of St. Domingo, and, as such, signed 
the Convention with General Maitland for the 
evacuation of the island by the British. From 
this period, until 1801, the island, under the 
government of Toussaint, was happy, tranquil, 
and prosperous. The miserable attempt of 



316 



NOTES. 



Napoleon to re-establish slavery in St. Domingo, 

although it failed of its intended object, proved 

fatal to the negro chieftain. Treacherously 

seized l>\ Leclero, he was hurried on board a vessel 

i, and conveyed to France, where he was 

I in a cold subterranean dungeon, at 

Besancon, where, in April, L803, lie died. The 

treatment of Toussaint finds a parallel only in 

the murder of the Duke D'Enghien. It was the 

remark of Godwin, in his Lectures, that the West, 

In. I in [elands, since their first discovery by Colum- 

i old not boast of a single name which 

deserves comparison with that of Toussaint 

L'Ouverture. 

Note 33, page 39. 

The reader may, perhaps, call to mind the beau- 
tiful sonnet of William Wordsworth, addressed to 
Toussaint L'Ouverture, during his confinement in 
France. 

" Toussaint !— thou most unhappy man of men ! 

Whether the whistling rustic tends his plough 

Within thy hearing, orthou liestnow 
Buried in some deep dungeon's earless den ; 
O miserable chieftain ! -where and when 

Will thou find patience f —Yet, die not, do thou 

Wear rather in thj bonds a cheerful brow; 
Though fallen thyself, never to rise again. 
Live and ta , Thou hast left behind 

Powers that will work for tn.ee ; air, earth, and 

skies, — 

There 's not a breathing of the common wind 
That will forget thee : thou hast great allies. 

Thy friends are exultations, agon es, 
And love, and man's unconquerable mind." 



Note 35, page 52. 



Note 34, page 39. 

The French ship Le Ropeuu, with a crew of 
twenty-two men, and with one hundred and sixty 
negro slaves, sailed from Bonny, in Africa, April, 
1819. On approaching the line, a terrible malady 
broke out, — an obstinate disease of the eyes, — 
contagious, and altogether beyond the resources 
of medicine. It was aggravated by the scarcity 
of water among the slaves (only half a wineglass 
per day being allowed to an individual), and by 
the extreme impurity of the air in which they 
breathed. By the advice of the physician, they 
were brought upon deck occasionally ; but some 
of the poor wretches, locking themselves in each 
other's arms, leaped overboard, in the hope, which 
so universally prevails among them, of being swift- 
ly transported to their own homes in Africa. To 
check this, the captain ordered several who were 
stopped in the attempt to be shot, or hanged, be- 
fore their companions. The disease extended to 
the crew ; and one after another were smitten with 
it, until only one remained unaffected. Yet even 
this dreadful condition did not preclude calcula- 
tion : to save the expense of supporting slaves ren- 
dered unsalable, and to obtain grounds for a claim 
against the underwriters, thirty-six of the ne- 
groes t having becomeblind, were thrown intothe 
if a a in! drowned ! 

In the midst of thoir dreadful fears lest the soli- 
tary individual, whose sight remained unaffected, 
should also be seized with the malady, a sail was 
discovered. It was the Spanish slaver, Leon. 
The same disease had been there ; and, horrible to 
tell, all the crew had become blind ! Unable to 
assist each other, the vessels parted. The Span- 
ish ship has never since been heard of. The 
Rodeur reached Ouadaloupe on the '3 1st of June ; 
the only man who had escaped the disease, and 
had thus been enabled to steer the slaver into 
port, caught it in three days after its arrival. — 
Speech of M. Benjamin Constant, in the French 
Chamber of Deputies, June 17, 1820. 



The Northern author . he Congressional rule 
against receiving petitio. of the people on th» 
subject of Slavery. 

Note 36, page 59. 

Dr. Thacher, surgeon in Scammel's regiment, 
in his description of the siege of Yorktown, says : 
" The labor on the Virginia plantations is 
performed altogether by a species of the human 
race cruelly wrested from their native country, 
and doomed to perpetual bondage, while their 
masters aie manfully contending for freedom ami 
thenatural rights of man. Such is the inconsis- 
tency of human nature." Eighteen hundred 
slaves were found at Yorktown, after its surren- 
der, and restored to their masters. Well was it 
said by Dr. Barnes, in his late work on Slavery : 
" No slave was any nearer his freedom after the 
surrender of Yorktown than when Patrick Henry 
first taught the notes of liberty to echo among the 
hills and vales of Virginia." 

Note 37, page 62. 

The rights and liberties affirmed by MAGNA 
Ciiakta. were deemed of such importance, in the 
thirteenth century, that the Bishops, twice a 
year, with tapers burning, and in their pontifical 
robes, pronounced, in the presence of the king 
and the representatives of the estates of England, 
the greater excommunication against the in- 
fringer of that instrument. The imposing cere- 
mony took place in the great Hall of Westmins- 
ter. A copy of the curse, as pronounced in 1253, 
declares that, " by the authority of Almighty God, 
and the blessed Apostles and Martyrs, and all the 
saints in heaven, all those who violate the Eng- 
lish liberties, and secretly or openly, by *\vn\. 
word, or counsel, do make statutes, or observe 
them being made, against said liberties, are ac- 
cursed and sequestered from the company of 
heaven and the sacraments of the Holy Church." 

William Penn, in his admirable political pam- 
phlet, "England's Present Interest considered," 
alluding to the curse of the Charter-breakers, says, 
" I am no Roman Catholic, and little value their 
other curses ; yet I declare I would not for the 
world incur this curse, as every man deservedly 
doth, who offers violence to the fundamental 
freedom thereby repeated and confirmed." 

Note 38, page 73. 

"The manner in which the Waldenses and 
heretics disseminated their principles among the 
Catholic gentry, was by carrying with them a box 
of trinkets, or articles of dress. Having entered 
the houses of the gentry, and disposed of some of 
their goods, they cautiously intimated that they 
had commodities far more valuable than these,— 
inestimable jewels, which they would show if 
they could be protected from the clergy. They 
would then give their purchasers a Bible or 
Testament ; and thereby many were deluded into 
heresy." — li. Saccho. 

Note 39, page 83. 

Chalkley Hall, near Frankford, Pa., the resi- 
dence of Thomas Chalkley, an eminent min- 
ister of the Friends' denomination. He was one 
of the early settlers of the Colony, and his 
Journal, which was published in 1719, presents a 
quaint but beautiful picture of a life of unosten- 
tatiousand simple goodness. He was the master 
of a. merchant vessel, and, in his visits to the West 
Indies and Great Britain, omitted no opportunity 



NOTES. 



317 



to labor for the highest interests of his fellow-men. 
During a temporary residence in Philadelphia, in 
the summer of 1838, the quiet and beautiful 
scenery around the ancient village of Frankford 
frequently attracted me from the heat and bustle 
of the city. 

Note -10, page 85. 

August. Soliloq. cap. xxxi. "Interrogavi Ter- 
rain," iVo. 

Note 41, page ST. 

For the idea of this line, I am indebted to 
Emerson, in his inimitable sonnet to the Rho- 
dora, — 

'■ If eve- were made for si 
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being." 

Note 42, page 95. 

Among the earliest converts to the doctrines of 
Friends in Scotland was Barclay of Ury, an old 
and distinguished soldier, who had fought under 
GustavUs Adolphus, in Germany. As a Quaker, 

he became the object of persecution and abuse at 
the hands of the magistrates and the populace. 
None bore the indignities of the mob with greater 
patience and nobleness of soul than this once 
proud gentleman and soldier. One of his friends, 
on an occasion of uncommon rudeness, lamented 
that h ■ sho dd be treated so harshly in his old age 
who had been so honored before. "I find more 

ction," said Barclay, " as well as "honor, in 
being thus insulted for my religious principles, 
than when, a few years ago, it was usual for the 

. ates, as I passed the city of Aberdeen, to 
meet me on the road and conduct me to public 
entertainment in their hall, and then escort me 
out again, to gain my favor." 

Note 43, page 101. 

Lucy Hooper died at Brooklyn, L. I., on the 1st 
of Sth mo., 1841, aged 24 years. 

Note 44, page 102. 

The last time I saw Dr. Channing was in the 
summer of 1841, when, in company with my Eng- 
lish friend, Joseph Sturge, so well known for his 
philanthropic labors and liberal political opinions. 
I visited him in his summer residence in Rhode 
Island. In recalling the impressions of that visit, 
it can scarcely be necessary to say, that I have no 
reference to the peculiar religious opinions of a 
man whose life, beautifully and truly manifested 
above the atmosphere of sect, is now the world's 
common legacy. 

Note 45, page 104. 

" O vine of Sibmah ! I will weep for thee with 
the weeping of Jazer !" — Jeremiah xlviii. 32. 

Note 46, page 106. 

Sophia Sturge, sister of Joseph Sturge, of Bir- 
mingham, the President of the British Complete 
Suffrage Association, died in the 6th month, 1845. 
She was the colleague, counsellor, and ever-ready 
helpmate of her brother in all his vast designs of 
beneficence. The Birmingham Pilot says of her : 
" Never, perhaps, were the active and passive vir- 
tues of the human character more harmoniously 
and beautifully blended than in this excellent 
woman." 



Note 47, page 107. 

Winnipiseogee : " Smile of the Great Spirit." 

Note 48, page 109. 

This legend is the subject of a celebrated pic- 
ture by Tintoretto, of which Mr. Rogers pos- 
sesses the original sketch. The slave lies on 
the ground, amid a crowd of spectators, who look 
on, animated by all the various emotions of sym- 
pathy, rage, terror ; a woman, in front, with a 
child in her arms, has always been admired for 
the lifelike vivacity of her attitude and expres- 
sion. The executioner holds up the broken imple- 
ments ; St. Mark, with a headlong movement, 
s ems to rush down from heaven in haste to save 
his worshipper. The dramatic grouping in tl is 
pict ire is wonderful; the coloring, in itsgorgeors 
depth and harmony, is, in Mr. Rogers's sketch, finer 
than in the picture. — Mi's. Jamiesoti's Poetry of 
Sacred and Legendary Art. Vol. I., p. 121. 

Note 49, page 110. 

Pennant, in his "Voyage to the Hebrides," de- 
scribes the holy well of Loch Maree, the waters 
of which were supposed to effect a miraculous 
cure of melancholy, trouble, and insanity. 

Note 50, page 111. 

The writer of these lines is no enemy of Catho- 
lics. He has, on more than one occasion, exposed 
himself to the censures of his Protestant brethren, 
by his strenuous endeavors to procure indemnifi- 
cation for the owners of the convent destroyed 
near Boston. He defended the cause of the 
Irish patriots long before it had become popular 
in this country ; and he was one of the first to 
urge the most liberal aid to the suffering and 
starving population of the Catholic island. The 
severity of his language finds its ample apology 
in the reluctant confession of one of the most 
eminent Romish priests, the eloquent and devoted 
Father Ventura. 

Note 51, page 111. 

Ebenezer Elliott, the intelligence of whose death 
has recently reached us, was, to the artisans of 
England, what Burns was to the peasantry of 
Scotland. His "Corn-law Rhymes "' contributed 
not a little to that overwhelming tide of popular 
opinion and feeling which resulted in the repeal 
of the tax on bread. Well has the eloquent 
author of " The Reforms and Reformers of Great 
Britain" said of him, "Not corn-law repealers 
alone, but all Britons who moisten their scanty 
bread with the sweat of the brow, are largely in- 
debted to his inspiring lay, for the mighty bound 
which the laboring mind of England has taken in 
our day." 

Note 52, page 112. 

The reader of the Biography of the late William 
Allen, the philanthropic associate of Clarkson and 
Romilly, cannot fail to admire his simple and 
beautiful record of a tour through Europe, in the 
years ISIS and 1819, in the company of his Ameri- 
can friend, Stephen Grellett. 

Note 53, page 116. 

" Thou 'mmd'st me of a story to'.d 
In rare Lernardin's leaves of gold." 

The incident here referred to is related in a 



:U8 



NOTES. 



note to Bernardin Henri Saint Pierre's Etudes <!<■ 
ture. 

" \\ e arrived at the habitation of the Hermits 
a little before they sat down to their table, and 
while they were still at church. J. J. Rousseau 
proposed bo me fco oiler up our devotions. The 
hermits were reciting the Litanies of Providence, 
which are remarkably beautiful. After we had 
addressed our prayers to God, and the hermits 
were proceeding to the refectory, Rousseau said 
to me, with his heart, overflowing, 'At this mo- 
ment I experience what is said in the 
ll'Ai /■( two or three are gathered together in my 
name, tlu re a n I in the midst of them. There is 
here a feeling of peace and happiness which pene 
trates the soul.' 1 said, 'It' Fenelon had lived, 
you would have beena Catholic.' He exclaimed, 
n nil bears in his eyes, ' 0, if Fenelon were alive. 
1 would struggle to get into his service, even as a 
lackey ! ' " 

In my sketch of Saint Pierre, it will be seen 
that I nave somewhat antedated the period of his 
old age. At that time he was not probably more 
than fifty. In describing him, I have by no means 
exaggerated his own history of his mental 
condition at the period of the story, in the frag- 
mentary Sequel to his Studies of Nature, he thus 
speaks of himself : "The ingratitude of those of 
whom I had deserved kindness, unexpected family 
misfortunes, the total loss of my small patrimony 
through enterprises solely undertaken for the 
benefit of my country, the debts under which I 
lay oppressed, bhe blasting of all my hopes, — these 
combined calamities made dreadful inroads upon 
my health and reason I found it im- 
possible to continue in a room where there was 
company, especially it' the doors were shut. 1 
could not even cross an alley in a publie garden, 
if several persons had got together in it. When 
alone, my malady subsided. I felt myself like- 
wise at ea le In places where I saw children only. 
At the sight of any one walking up to the place 
where I was, I felt my whole frame agitated, and 
retired. 1 often said to myself, " M 3 sole s! dy 
has been to merit well of mankind ; why do I fear 
them?'" 

He attributes his improved health of mind and 
body to the counsels of his friend, J. J. Rousseau. 
"I renounced,'' says he, "my books. I threw my 
eyes upon th:j works of nature, which spake to 
all my senses a language which neitl er tim ■ n< r 
nations have it in their power to alter. Thence- 
forth my histories and my journals were the 
of the fields and meadows. My thoughts 
did not go forth painfully after them, as in the 
caseof human systems ; but their thoughts, under 
a thousand engaging forms, quietly sought me. 
In these I studied, without effort, the laws of that 
Universal Wisdom which had b mounded me from 
the cradle, buton which heretofore I had bestowed 
litl e attention." 

Speaking of Rousseau, he says: "I derived in- 
expressible satisfaction from his society. What 
I prized still more than his genius, was his probity. 
He was one of the few literary characters, tried 
furnace of affliction, to whom you could, 
w t i perfect security, confide your most secret 

thought-- Even when he deviated, and 

became the victim of himself or of others, he 
could forget his own misery in devotion to the wel- 
fare of mankind. He was uniformly the advocate 
of the miserable. There might be inscribed on 
his tomb th i voids from that Hook of 

wdiich he carried always about him some select 
passages, during the last years of his life: His 
sins, which are many, arc forgicen, for he loved 
much." 

Note 54, page 117. 
" Like that the gray-haired sea-king passed." 



Dr. Hooker, who accompanied Sir James Ross in 
his expedition of 1841, thus describes the appeai 
ance of that unknown land of frost and fire v, hich 
was seen in latitude 77° south, — a stupendous 
chain of mountains, the whole mass of which, from 
its highest point to the ocean, was covered with 
everlasting snow and ice : — 

" The water and the sky were both as blui . or 
rather more intensi ly blue, tnan I have ev< r seen 
them in the tropics, tied all thecoastwasoi 

of dazzlingly beautiful peaks of snow, which, 
when the sun approached the horizon, reflected 
bhemosl brilliant- bints of -olden yellow and scat 
let; and then, to see the dark (loud of smoke, 
tinged with name, rising fiom the volcano in a 
perfect unbroken column, one side jet black, the 
other giving back the colors of the sun, sometimes 
turning oil at a right angle by some current of 
wind, and stretching many miles to leeward ! 
This was a sight so surpassing everything that 
can be imagined, and so heightened by the con- 
sciousness that we bad penetrated, under the 
guidance of our commander, into regions far 
beyond what was ever deemed practicable, that 
it caused a feeling of awe to steal over is at the 
considerate □ of our own comparative insignifi- 
cance and helplessness, and at the same time an 
indescribable feeling of the greatness of the Cre- 
ator in the works of his hand." 

Note 55, page 121 . 

The election of Charles Sumner to the U. S. 
Senate " followed hard upon" the rendition of the 
fugitive Sims by the U. S. officials and the armed 
police of Boston. 

Note 56, page 123. 

The storming of the city of Derne, in 1805, by 
General Eaton, at the head of nine Americans, 
forty Greeks, and a motley array of Turks and 
Arabs, was one of those teats id' hardihood and 
daring wh eh have in all agi s attracted t! 
ration of the multitude. The higher and holier 
heroism of Christian self-denial and sacrifice, in 
the humble walks of private duty, is seldom so 
well appreciated. 

Note 57, page 1 25. 

It is proper to say that these lines are the joint 
impromptus of my sister and myself. '1 h y are 
inserted here as an expression of our admiration 
of the gifted stranger whom we have since learned 
to love as a friend. 

Note 58, page 128. 

This ballad was originally published in a prose 
work of the ai ten's, as the song of a wandering 
Milesian schcolmasl r. 

In the sen nteenth century, slavery in the New 
World was by no means confined to the nat i\ I s id' 
Africa. Political offenders and criminals were 
transported by the British government to the 
plantations of Barbadoes and Virginia, where 
they were sold like cattle in the market. Kid 
napping of free and innocent white persons was 
practised to a considerable extent in the seapoits 
of the United Kingdom. 

Note 59, page 129. 

It can scarcely be necessary to say that there 
are elements in the character and passages in the 
history of the great Hungarian statesman and 
orator, w hich necessarily command the admiration 
of those, even, who believe that no political revo- 
lution was ever worth the price of human blood. 



NOTES. 



319 



Note 60, page 131. 

" Homilies from Oldbug hear. - ' 

Dr. W — , author of "The Puritan," under 
the name of Jonathan Oldbug. 

Note 61, page 13S. 

William Forster, of Norwich, England, died in 
East Tennessee, in the 1st month, 1854, while en- 
gaged in presenting to the governors of the States 
of this Union the address of his religious society 
on the evils of slavery. He was the relati 
coadjutor of the Buxtons, ( Jnrneys, and Prys ; and 
his whole life, extending almost to threescore and 
ten years, was a pure and beautiful example of 
Christian benevolence. He had travelled over 
Europe, and visited most of its sovereigns, to 
plead against the slave-trade and slavery ; and had 
twice before made visits to this country, under 
impressions of religious duty. 

Note 62, page 139. 

No more fitting inscription could be placed on 
the tombstone of Robert Rantoul than this : ••He 
died at his post in Congress, and his last words 
were a protest in the name of Democracy against 
the Fugitive-Slave Law." 

Note 63, page 146. 

"Sebah, Oasis of Fezzan, 10th March, 1846.— 

This evening the female slaves were unusually 
excited in singing, and I had the curiosity to ask 
my negro servant, Said, whit they were singing 
about. As many of them were natives of his own 
country, lie ha 1 no difficulty in translating the 
Mandara or Bornou language. 1 had often asked 
til- .Moors to translate their songs for me. but 
got no satisfactory account from them. Said at 
first said, ' 0,they sing- of Ruber ' (God). ' What 
do you mean ?' I replied, impatiently. ' <> don't 
you know "i ' he continued, ' they asked God to give 
them their Atka /' ( certificate of freedom.) I in- 
quired, 'Is that all'?' Said: 'No; they say, 
"Where are we going? Tnc world is large. O 
God! Where are we going? <> God /'" I inquir- 
ed, ' What els - ': ' Said : 'They remember their 
country, Bomou, and say, " Bornou was •> pleas- 
ant country, fit'! of all good things ; hut this is " 
bad country, <ni<! we are miserable!" 'Do they 
say anything else ? ' Said : 'No ; they repeat these 
words over and over again, and add, "O God! 
give us our Atka, <nni i,t n>. return again /•> our 
ih ar Ifniit." ' 

"lam not surprised I got little satisfaction 
when I asked the Moors about the songs of their 
Wiio will say that the above words are 
not a very appropriate so ig ? What could have 
been more congenially adapted to their then woful 
condition ? It is not to be wondered at that these 
poor bondwomen cheer up their hearts, in their 
long, lonely, and painful wanderings over the des- 
ert, with words and smtiments like these; but 1 
have often observed that their fatigue and suffer- 
ings were too great for them to strike up this 
melancholy dirge, and many days their plain- 
tive strains never broke over the silence of the 
desert." — Richardson's Journal. 

Note 64, page 147. 

One of the latest and most interesting items of 
Eastern news is the statement that Slavery has 
been formally and totally abolished in Egypt. 

Note 65, page 158. 

A letter from England, in the Friends' 1 Jieview, 
says: "Joseph Sturge, with a companion, 



Thomas Harvey, has been visiting the shores 
of Finland, to ascertain the amount of mischief 
and loss to poor and peaceable sufferers, occa- 
sioned by the gunboats of the Allied squadrons 
in the late war, with a view to obtaining relief 
for them." 

Note 66, page 167. 

A remarkable custom, brought from the Old 
Country, formerly prevailed in the rural districts 
of New England. On the death of a men 
the family, the bees were at once informed of the 
event, and their hives dressed in mourning. This 
ceremonial was supposed to lie necessary to pre- 
vent the swarms from leaving their hi 
seeking a new home. 

Note 67, page 171. 

" Too late I loved Thee, O Beauty of ancient 
days, yet ever new ! And lo ! Thou wert with- 
in, and I abroad searching for thee. Thou wert 
with me, but I was not with thee." — August. 
Soliloq., Book X. 

Note 68, page 174. 



"And I saw that there was an Ocean of Dark- 
ness and Death : but an infinite Ocean of Light 
and Love flowed over the Ocean of Darkness : 
And in that I saw the infinite Love of God." — 
George Fox's Journal. 

Note 69, page 179. 

The massacre of unarmed and unoffending men, 
in Southern Kansas, took place near the Marias 
du Cygne of the French voyageurs. 

Note 70, page 186. 

Read at the Friends' School Anniversary, 
Providence, R. I., 6th mo., 1660. 

Note 71, page 192. 

See English caricatures of America : Slave- 
holder and cowhide, with the motto, " Haven't 
1 a right to wallop my nigger V " 

Note 72, page 194. 

It is recorded that the Chians, when subjugated 
by Mithridates of Cappadocia, were delivered up 
to their own slaves, to be carried away captive to 
Colchis. Athenaeus considers this a just punish- 
ment for their wickedness in first introducing 
the slave-trade into Greece. From this ancient 
villany of the Chians the proverb arose, "The 
Chian hath bought himself a master. " 

Note 73, page 197. 

This ballad was vrittcn on the occasion of a 
Horticultural Festival. Cobbler Keezar was a 
noted character among the first settlers in the 
valley of the Merrimack. 

Note 74, page 206. 

Lieutenant Herndon's Report of the Explora- 
tion of the Amazon has a striking description of 
the peculiar and melancholy notes of a bird heard 
by night on the shores of the river. The Indian 
guides called it " The Cry of a Lost Soul " ! 

Note 75, page 259. 

Eleonora Johanna Von Merlau, or, as Sewall 
the Quaker Historian gives it, Von Merlane, a no- 



o20 



NOTES. 



ble young lady of Frankfort, spems to have held 
among the llystioa ch such a 

a as Annia Maria Schurmaus did among 
Ho i'il, \\ . Lam :' inn ap- 

o have shared the admiration of her own 
immediate circle tor tins accomplished an 
lady. 

Note 76, page 2G0. 

Magister Johann Kelpius, a graduate of the 
University of Helmstadt, came to Pennsylvania, 
in li'i'.n, with a company of German Mystics. 
They made their home in the woods on the Wis- 
in, a little west of th i Quaker settlement of 
town. Kelpius was a believer in the near 
approa :h of the Millennium, and was a devout 
of i b ' Bo k of Revelal on, an I the Afor- 
yen-Rothe of Jacob Behman. He called his s I le 
ment " The Woman in tiie Wilderness " {/Jus 
Weib in tier Wueste). He was only twenty-four 
years of age when he came to America, but his 
gravity, learning, and devotion placed him at ttie 
head of t le s itt ement. He disliked the Q takers, 
because he thought they were too exclusive i'i tiie 
matter of ministers. He was, like most of the 
Mystics, opposed to the severe doctrinal views of 
Calv n and even Luther, declaring " (hit he 
could as little agree with the Damnnmus of the 
Augsburg Con with the Anathema of 

the < iouncil of Trent." 

He die I in 1704, sitting in his little garden sur- 
rounded by his grievi ig d sciplos. Previous to 
his death it is said that he cast his famous 
" Stone of Wisdom " into the river, where that 
mystic souvenir of the times of Van Helmont, 
Paracelsus, and Agrippa.has lain ever since, un- 
disturbed. 

Note 77, page 200. 

Peter Sluyter, or Schluter, a native of Wesel, 
united himself with the sect of Labadists, who 
believed in the Divine commission of John De 
Labadie, a Roman Catholic priest converted to 
Protestantism, enthusiastic, eloquent, and evi- 
dently sincere in his special calling and election 
to separate the true and living members of the 
Church of Christ from the formalism and hypoc- 
risy of the ruling sects. George Keith and 
Robert Barclay visited him at Amsterdam, and 
afterward at the communities of Herford and 
Wieward ; and, according to Gerard Croes, found 
him so neir to them on some points, that they of- 
fered to take him into the Society of Friends. 
This offer, if it was really made, which is certain- 
ly doubtful, was, happily for the Friends, at least. 
declined. Invited t > Herford in Westpha- 
lia by Elizabeth, daughter of the Elector Pala- 
tine, De Labadie and his followers preached 
incessantly, and succeeded in arousing a wild en- 
thusiasm among the people, who neglected 
their business and gave way to excitements and 
Men a id worm n, it was said, 
at the Communion drank and danced together. 
and private marriages, or spiritual unions, were 
in me I. Laba In- died in 1674 at Altona, in 1 Jen- 
mark, maintaining his testimonies to the last. 
" Nothing remains for me," he said, " except to 
go to my God. Deatli is merely ascending from 
a lower and narrower chamber to one higher and 
holier." 

In 107'.*, Pet'r Sluyter and Jasper Dankers 
v, i sent to America by the community at the 
Castle of Wieward. Their journal, translated 
from the Dutch and edited by Henry C. Murphy, 
has been recently published by the Long Island 
Historical Society. They made some converts. 
and among them was the eldest sun of Hermanns, 
the proprietor of a rich tract of land at the head 
of Chesapeake Bay, known as Bohemia Manor. 



Sluyter obtained a grant of this tract, and estab- 
Lisiied upon it a community numbeiing at one 
time a hun bred souls. Very contradictory state- 
ments are on lecord regarding his headship of 
this spiritual family, the discipline of which 
seems to have been of more than monastic severi- 
ty. Certain it is that lie bought and sold slaves, 
an 1 manift sted more interest in the world's goods 
than became a believer in the near Millennium. 
Hi evinces in his journal an overweening spiritu- 
al [Hide, and speaks contemptuously of oth< r pro- 
fessors, especially the Quakers whom he met in 
his travels. The latter, on the contrary, seem to 
have looked favorably upon the Labadists. and 
uniformly speak of them courteously and kindly. 
His journal shows him to have been destitute of 
common gratitude and Christian charity. He 
threw himself upon the generous hospitality of the 
Friends wherever he went, and repaid their kind- 
ness by the coarsest abuse and misrepresentation. 

Note 78, page 261. 

Among the pioneer Friends were many men of 
learning and broad and liberal views. Penn was 
conversant with every department of literature 
and philosophy. Thomas Lloyd was a lipe and 
rare scholar. The great Loganian Library of 
Philadelphia bears witness to the varied learning 
and classical taste of its donor, James I ogan. 
Thomas Story, member of the Council of State, 
Master of the Rolls, and Commissioner of Claims 
under William Penn, and an able minist r of his 
Society, took a deep interest in scientific ques- 
tions, and in a letter to his friend Logan, written 
while on a religious visit to Great Biitain, seems 
to have anticipated the conclusion of modern 
geologists. "1 spent," he says, "some months, 
especially at Scarborough, during the season at- 
tending meetings, at whose high ciifl's and the 
variety of strata therein and their several 
positions I further learned and was confirmed m 
some things, — that the earth is of much older date 
as to the beginning of it than the time assigned 
in the Holy Scriptures as commonly understood, 
which is suited to the common capaciti; s of man- 
kind, as to six days of progressive work, by which 
I understand certain long and competent periods 
of time, and not natural days." It was sometimes 
made a matter of reproach by the Anabaptists 
and other sects, that the Quakers read profane 
writings and philosophies, and that they quoted 
heathen moralists in support of their views. 
Sluyter and Bankers, in their journal of Ameri- 
can travels, visiting a Quaker preacher's house at 
Burlington, on the Delaware, found "'a volume 
of Virgil lying on the window, as if it were a com- 
mon hand-book ; also Helmont's book on Medi- 
cine (Urtiis Medicines, id est Initia Physiea inau- 
clita progremus medicinre novm in morborum 
ultionam ad vitam longam), whom, in an intro- 
duction they have made to it, they make to pass 
for one of their own sect, although in his lifetime 
he did not know anything about Quakers." It 
would appear from this that the half -mystical, 
half-scientific writings of the alchemist and philos- 
opher of Vilverde had not escaped the notice of 
Friends, and that they had included him in their 
broad eclecticism. 

Note 79, page 201. 

" The Quaker's Meeting," a painting by E. 
Hemskerck (supposed to be Egbert Hemskerck 
the younger, son of Egbert Hemskerck the ol I), 
in which William Penn and others— among them 
Charles 1 1., or the Duke of York — arerepr sented 
along with the rudest and most stolid class of the 
British rural population at that period. Hems- 
kerck came to Loudon from Holland with King 



NOTES. 



321 



William in 1689. He delighted in wild, grotesque 
Bubjects, such as the nocturnal intercourse of 
witches and the temptation of St. Anthony. 
Whatever was strange and uncommon attracted 
his free pencil. Judging from the portrait of 
Penn, he must have drawn his faces, figures, and 
costumes from life, although there may be some- 
thing of caricature in the convulsed attitudes of 
two or three of the figures. 

Note 80, page 262. 

In one of his letters addressed to his friends in 
Germany he says : " These wild men, who never 
in their life heard Christ's teachings about tem- 
perance and contentment, herein far surpass the 
Christians. They live far more contented and 
unconcerned for the morrow. They do not over- 
reach in trade. They know nothing of our ever- 
lasting pomp and stylishness. They neither 
curse nor swear, are temperate in food and drink, 
and if any of them get drunk, the mouth-Chris- 
tians are at fault, who, for the sake of accursed 
lucre, sell them strong drink." 

Again he wrote in 1698 to his father that he 
finds the Indians reasonable people, willing to ac- 
cept good teaching and manners, evincing an 
inward piety towar I God, and more eager, in fact, 
to understand things divine than many among 
you who in the pulpit teach Christ in word, but 
by ungodly life deny him. 

"It is evident," says Professor Seide.istecker, 
"Pastorius holds up the Indian as Nature's un- 
npoiled child to theeyesof the ' European Babel,' 
somewhat after the same manner in which 
Tacitus used the barbarian Germani to shame 
his degenerate countrymen." 

As believers in the universality of the Saving 
Light, the outlook of early Friends upon the 
heathen was a very cheerful and hopeful one. 
God was as near to them as to Jew or Anglo- 
Saxon ; as accessible at Timbuctoo as at Rome or 
Geneva. Not the letter of Scripture, but the 
spirit which dictated it, was of saving effiacy. 
Robert Barclay is nowhere more powerful than in 
his argument for the salvation of the heathen, 
who live according to their light, without know- 



ing even the name of Christ. William Penn 
thought Socrates as good a Christian as Richard 
Baxter. Early Fathers of the Church, as Origen 
and Justin Martyr, held broader views on this 
point than modern Evangelicals. Even Augustine, 
from whom Calvin borrowed his theology, admits 
that he has no controversy with the admirable 
philosophers, Plato and Plotinus. "Nor do I 
think," he says in De Civ. D?\ lib. xviii., cap. 
47, " that the Jews dare affirm that none belonged 
unto God but the Israelites." 

Note 81, page 298. 

This ballad, originally written for J. R. Osgood 
& Co.'s Memorial History of Buxton, describes, 
with pardonable poetic license, a memorable in- 
cident in the annals of the city. The interview 
between Shattuck and the Governor took place, I 
have since learned, in the residence of the latter, 
and not in the Council Chamber. 

Note 82, page 300. 

This name in some parts of Europe is given to 
the season we call Indian Summer, in honor of 
the good St. Martin. The title of the poem was 
suggested by the fact that the day it refers tn was 
the exact date of the Saint's birth, the lltli of No- 
vember. 

Note 83, page 301. 

See Tyler's Primitive Culture, vol. ii. pp 32, 33. 
Also Journal of Asiatic Society, vol. iv. p 795. 

Note 84, page 305. 

The picturesquely situated Wayside Inn at West 
Ossipee, N. H., is now in ashes; and to its for- 
mer guests these somewhat careless rhymes may 
be a not unwelcome reminder of pleasant summers 
and autumns on the banks of the Bearcamp and 
Otoconia, To the author himself they have a 
special interest from the fact that they were writ- 
ten, or improvised, under the eve, and for the 
amusement of a beloved invalid friend whose last 
earthly sunsets faded from the mountain ranges of 
Ossipee and Sandwich. 



21 



INDEX. 



Abraham Davenport, 226. 
Abram Morrison, 304. 
A Dream of Summer, 84. 
After Election, 252. 
A Lament, 104. 
A Lav of Old Time, 158. 

All's' Well. 114. 

A Memorial, M. A. C. 207. 

A Memorv, 145. 

A Mvsterv, 27s. 

Among Hie Hills, 236. 

Ann- Wentworth, 199. 

A Name, 307. 

Andrew Rykman's Prayer, 205. 

Angel of Patience, The, 76. 

Angels of Buena Vista, The, 93. 

Anniversary Poem, 194. 

Answer. The, 24-J. 

April. 125. 

A Sabbath Scene, 126. 

A Sea I 'ream. 277. 

A Spiritual .Manifestation, 255. 

As r.ea. 124. 

Asti\ca at the Capitol, 193. 

At Eventide, 21)7. 

At Port Roval, 195. 

At School-Close, 2)7. 

Autumn Festival, For an, 190. 

Autumn Thoughts, 110. 

A Woman. -_**". 7 - 

A Word for the Hour, 191. 

Barbara Frietchie, 196. 
Barclay of Urv, 95. 
Barefoot Bov,'The. 143. 
Battle Autumn of 1862, The, 193. 
Bavard Taylor, 308. 
Benedicite, 122. 
Look. The, •■Hi). 
Branded Hand, The. 54. 
Brewing of Soma, The, 266. 
Bridal of Pennacook, The, 20. 
Brother of Mercy, The, 220. 
Brown of Ossawatomie, 188. 
Bryant on his Birthday, 233. 
Burial of Barbour, L.56". 
Burns, 137. 
By their Works, 310. 

Calef in Boston. 1692, 110. 
Call of the Christian, The, 73. 
Cassandra Southwick, 28. 
• Centennial Hvmn, 292. 
Chalklev Hall, 83. 
Changering, The, 221. 
( 'banning, 102. 
( lhapel of the Hermits, 115. 
( Ihicago, 256. 
Child-Songs, 278. 
Christian Slave, The, 44. 
Christian Tourists, The, 112. 



Christmas Carmen, A, 280. 

Cities of the Plain, The, 69. 

Clear Vision, The, 239. 

( 'lerieal Oppressors, 4-i. 

Cobbler Keezar's Vision, 197. 

Common Question, The, 233. 

Conduct, 311. 

Conductor Bradley, 27S. 

Conquest of Finland, The, 158. 

Corn-Song, The, 91. 

Countess, The, 201. 

Crisis, The, 64. 

Cross, The, 124. 

Crucifixion, The, 69. 

Cry of a Lost Soul, The, 206. 

Curse of the Charter-Breakers, The, 62. 

Cypress-Tree of Ceylon, The, 84. 

Daniel Neall. 105. 

Daniel Wheeler, 1()4. 

Dead Feast of the Kol-Folk, The, 301. 

Dead Ship of Harpswell, 224. 

Dedication (to Songs of Labor), 86. 

Democracy, 82. 

Demon of* the Studv, The, 97. 

Deme, 123. 

Disarmament, 267. 

Divine ( lompassion, 244. 

Dole of Jar! Thorkell, The, 240. 

Double-Headed Snake of Newbury, The, 169. 

Dream of Pio Mono, The, 139. 

Dream oi Summer, A, 84. • 

Drovers, The, 89. 

"Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott," 191. 

Elliott, 111. 

Emancipation Group, The, 302. 

Eternal Goodness, The, 230. 

Eva, 125 

Eve of Election, The, 174. 

Exiles, The, 35. 

Extract from "A New England Legend," 98. 

Ezekiel, 67. 

Familist's Hymn, The, 33. 

Farewell of a Virginia Slave Mother to her 
Daughters, sold into Southern Bondage, The, 48. 
Female Martvr, The, 71. 
First-Dav Thoughts, 129. 
First Flowers, The, 159. 
Fishermen, The, 89. 
Fitz-Greene Halleck, 293. 
Flowers in Winter, 144. 
Follen, 76. 

For an Autumn Festival, 190. 
Forgiveness, 94. 
Fountain, The, 34. 
Francis Daniel Pastorius, 257. 
Freedom in Brazil, 244. 
Friend's Burial, The, 275. 
From Perugia, 189. 



324 



INDEX. 



Frosl Spirit, The, 72. 
Fruit -(lilt.. The, 145. 
Funeral Tree of the Sokokis, 31. 

Garibaldi, 252. 

Garrison, 307. 

t larrison of < lap'e Ann, The, 1 * i - 

Gifl of Tritemius, The, 174. 

Giving and Taking, 296. 

G. L. S., 243. 

Golden Wedding of Longwood, The, 279. 

Cone, 106. 

Grave by the Lake, The, 218. 

Hampton Beach, 99. 

Haschiseh, The. 147. 

Healer, The, 280. 

Hell), 311. 

Henchman, The, 294. 

Hermit of the Thebaid, The, 136. 

Hero, The, 142. 

Hill-Top. The. 107. 

Hive at Gettysburg, The, 253. 

Holv Land, The, 66. 

Home Ballads, 161. 

Howard Ht Atlanta, 253. 

Human Sacrifice, The, 80. 

Hunters of Men, The, 43. 

Hunters, The, 90. 

Hymn, 256. 

Hvmn for the House of Worship at Georgetown, 
245. 

Hymn for the Opening of Plymouth Church, Min- 
nesota, 281. 

Hymn for tin 1 Opening of Thomas Starr Kind's 
House of Worship, 1864, 234. 

Hymn of the Dunkers, 291. 

Hymn sung at Christmas, 208. 

Hymn sung at the Anniversary of the Children's 
'Mission, 296. 

Hymns, 70. 

11 1 was a Stranger, and ye Took me in," 296. 

Ichabod, 112. 

Index. 323. 

In Peace, 122. 

In Quest. 210. 

In Remembrance of Joseph Sturge, 170. 

In School-Days, 251. 

In the "Old South," 291. 

Invocation, 124. 

Inward Judge, The, 311. 

Italy, 207. 

John Underhill, 275. 
Jubilee Singers, The. .'102. 
June on the Merrimac, 290. 

Kallundborg Church, 223. 

Kansas Emigrants, The, 146. 

Kathleen, 128. 

Kenoza Lake, 182. 

Khan's Devil. The, 304. 

King Solomon and the Ants, 295. 

King Volmer and Elsie, 269. 

King's Missive, The, 298. 

Kinsman, 280. 

Knighl of St. John, The, 65. 

Kossuth, 129. 

Lake-Side, The, 107. 

Lament, A. 104. 

Last Walk in Autumn, The, 153. 

Laus he,,! 229. 

Lay of old lime, A. 158. 

I, a vine,- up Treasure, 311. 

Legend of St. Mark. The. 109. 

Leggett's Monument, 86. 

Le Marais du Cygne, 179. 



Lexington, 292. 

Library, The, 294. 

Lines, 145. 

Lines accompanying Manuscripts presented to a 
Friend, loo. 

Lines for an Agricultural Exhibition, 183. 

Lines for the Burns Festival, 182. 

Lines from a Letter tc> a young Clerical Friend, r,s. 

Lines (inscribed to friends, etc.), 146. 

Lines on a Fly-Leaf, 244. 

Lines on the Adoption of Pinckney's Resolutions, 
(12. 

Lines on the Death of S. (). Torrev, 104. 

Lines (suggested by reading a State Paper), 141. 

I.in,-. suggested l,v a Visit to the City of Wash- 
ington in the 12th Month of 1845, 57.' 

Lines written for the Anniversary of the 1st of 
August, at Milton, 1840. 47. 

Lines written for the Celebration of the Thin! An- 
niversary ol British Emancipation, 1873, 47. 

Lines written for the Meeting of (he Anti-Slavery 
Society at Chatham Street Chapel, New York, 
1834, 47. 

Lines written in the Book of a Friend, 59. 

Lines written on hearing of the death of Silas 
Wright, of New York, too. 

Lines written on reading Pamphlets published by 
Clergymen against the Abolition of the Gallows, 
70. 

Lines written on reading the Message of Governor 
Ritner, of Pennsylvania, 1830, 45. 

Lost Occasion, The, 301. 

Lucy Hooper, 101. 

Lumbermen, The, 92. 

Maids of Attitash, The, 222. 

Mantle of St. John De Matha, The, 227. 

Marguerite, 208. 

Mary Garvin, 148. 

Massachusetts to Virginia, 52. 

Maud Mul'ler, 151. 

Mavllowers. The, 156. 

Meeting, The, 241. 

Memorial, A, 207. 

Memories, 108. 

Memory, A, 145. 

Men of Old, The, 112. 

Merrimack, The, 20. 

Minister's Daughter, The, 308. 

Miriam, 240. 

Mithridates at Chios. 104. 

Mogg Megone (Parts L, IL. III.), 11, 15, 18. 

Moloch in' State Street, 120. 

Moral Warfare, The. 49. 

Mountain Pictures (I., IL), 204. 

Mv Birthdav, 266. 

My Dream, 142. 

Mv Namesake, 159. 

My Playmate, 172. 

My Psalm, 179. 

My Soul and I, 73. 

My Triumph, 252. 

Mv Trust, 309. 

Mystery, A, 278. 

Naples. 1800, 203. 
Nauhaught, the Deacon, 251. 
New Exodus, The, 147. 
New Hampshire, 51 
New Wife Mild the Old. The, 36. 
New Year: addressed to the Patrons of the Penn- 
sylvania Freeman, 51. 
Norembega, 250. 
Norsemen, The, 27. 
Notes, :J13. 

Old Burying-Ground, The, 177. 
( m a fountain, :S1 1. 
On a Prayer-Book, 180. 



INDEX. 



325 



On a Sun-Dial, 311. 


Song of the Free, 42. 


On receiving an Eagle's Quill from Lake Superior, 


Song of the Negro Boatmen, 195. 


108. 


Song of Slaves in the Desert, 146. 


Our Autocrat, 306. 


Spiritual -Manifestation, A, 255. 


Our Countrvmen in Chains, 40. 


Stanzas for the Times, 44. 


Our Master^ 231. 


Stanzas for the Tiir.es, 1850, 126. 


Our River, 204. 


Stanzas — Our Countrymen in Chains, 40. 


Our State, 114. 


Star of Bethlehem, The, 69. 


Over-Heart, The, 175. 


St. John, 31. 


Overruled, 296. 


St. Martin's Summer, 300. 




Summer by the Lakeside, 135. 


Psean, 60. 


Summons, The, 203. 


Pageant, The, 263. 


Sumner, 272. 


Palatine, The, 225. 


Sunset on the Bearcamp, 288. 


Palestine, 66. 


Swan Song of Parson Avery, The, 170. 


l'alm-Tree, The, 181. 


Sycamores, The, 168. 


Panorama, The, 131. 




Pass of the Sierra, The, 157. 


Tauler, 140. 


Pastoral Letter, The, 46. 


Telling the Bees, 167. 


Peace Autumn, The, 229. 


Tent on the Beach, The, 215. 


Peace Convention at Brussels, The, 113. 


Texas, 55. 


Peace of Europe, The, 121. 


"The Laurels," 256. 


Pennsylvania Pilgrim, The, 258. 


"The Rock" in El Ghor, 180. 


Pentucket, 31. 


Thiers, 293. 


Pictures, 123. 


Thomas Starr King, 234. 


Pine-Tree, The, 57. 


Three Bells, The, 271. 


Pipes at Lucknow, The. 178. 


Thy Will be Done, 190. 


Poor Voter on Election Day, 128. 


To a Friend, on her Return from Europe, 75. 


Prayer of Agassiz, 274. 


To A. K., 115. 


Praver-Seeker, The, 254. 


To a Southern Statesman, 61. 


Preach r. The, 184. 


To C. S., 146. 


Prelude (Anion- the Hills), 235. 


To Delaware, 96. 


Prelude (Pennsj'lvania Pilgrim), 257. 


To Englishmen, 192. 


Prelude (The King's Missive), 298. 


To Faneuil Hall, 56. 


Pressed 1 ientian, The, 296. 


To Frederick A. P. Barnard, 246. 


Prisoner for Debt, The, 78. 


To Fredrika Bremer, 125. 


Prisoners of Naples, The, 120. 


To G. B. C. 183. 


Problem, The, 297. 


To John C. Fremont, 191. 


Proclamation, The, 194. 


To J. P., 84. 


Proem, vi. 


To J. T. F., 181. 


Prologue to Hazel-Blossoms, 271. 


To Lvdia Maria Child, 254. 


Prophecy of Samuel Sewall, 164. 


To Massachusetts, 56. 


Pumpkin, The, 98. 


To my Friend on the Death of his Sister, 106. 




To my old Schoolmaster, 129. 


Quaker Alumni, The, 186. 


To ray Sister, 110. 


Quaker of the Olden Time, The, 77. 


To (Lines written after an Excursion), 122. 


Quest, In. 276. 


To (with a Copy of Woolman's Journal), 


Questions of Life, 119. 


85. 




To Pennsylvania, 156. 


Randolph of Roanoke, 81. 


To Pius IX., 111. 


Rnnuer. The, 151. 


To Rouo-e, 83. 


Rantoul, 139. 


To Samuel E. and Harriet W. Sewall, 192. 


Raphael, 101. 


To the Memory of Charles B. Storrs, 103. 


Red Riding-Hood, 295. 


To the Memory of Thomas Shipley, 61. 


Red River Voyageur, The, 182. 


To the Reformers of England, 77. 


Reformer, The, 78. 


To the Thirty-Ninth Congress, 230. 


Relic, The, 54. 


To W. L. G." 42. 


Remembrance, 127. 


Toussaint L'Ouverture, 38. 


Rendition. The, 144. 


Trailing Arbutus, The, 310. 


Requirement, 311. 


Trinitas, 177. 


Response, 298. 


Truce of Piscataqua, The, 170. 


Revisited, 233. 


Trust, 128. 


Reward, The, 100. 


Two Angels, The, 204. 


River Path, The, 207. 


Two Rabbis, The, 241. 


Robin, The, 267. 




« 


Underhill, John, 275. 


Sabbath Scene. A, 126. ' 


Utterance, 311. 


Seed-Time and Harvest, 114. 




Seeking of the Waterfall, The, 289. 


Vanishers, The, 232. 


Shadow and the Light, The, 173. 


Vaudois Teacher, The, 73. 


Ship-Builders, The. 87. 


Vesta, 280. 


Shoemakers, The, 88. 


Vision of Kchard, The, 285. 


Singer, The, 256. 


Voices, The, 14. 


Sisters, The, 183, 268. 


Voyage of the Jettie, 306. 


Skipper Ireson's Ride, 165. 




Slave-Ships, The. 3!). 


Waiting, The, 203. 


Slaves ot Martinique, The, 63. 


Watchers, The, 192. 


Snow-Bound, 209. 


Well of Loch Maree, 110. 



326 



INDEX. 



Whal of the Day? 150. 

What the Birds said, 228. 

Whal the Voice said, 96. 

Wife of Manoah to her Husband, The, 

William Forster, 138. 

William Francis Bartlett. 293. 

Wish of To-dav, The. 114. 

^\" i t < 1» of Wenliam, The, 286. 

Witch's Daughter, The, 101. 

Within the Gate, 303. 

Woman, A, 267. 

Word for the Hour, A, 191. 

Wordsworth, 121. 

Word, The, 310. 

world's Convention, The, 49. 

Worship, 96. 

Wreck of Rivermouth, The, 216. 

Yankee Girl, The, 32. 
York town, 60. 



POEMS BY 

ELIZABETH II. WHITTIER. 

Adams, John Quincy, 282. 
Argyle, The Dream'of, 281. 

Charity, 284. 

Dr. Kane in Cuba, 283. 

Lady Franklin, 283. 

Lines written on the Departure of Joseph Sturge 
from the United States, 282. 

Meeting Waters, The, 284. 

Nighl and Death, 283. 

Wedding Veil, The, 284. 













































































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